


Warrior Peoples

by drakensis



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-08
Updated: 2013-11-08
Packaged: 2017-12-31 21:04:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 51,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1036377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drakensis/pseuds/drakensis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SG-1 encounter a Goa'uld unlike any of the System Lords. And his ambitions will shake the very galaxy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

With a rush of energy, the Stargate activated, a column of pseudo-water rushing out from the surface before settling into a rippling pool within the circle of metal. For a moment, almost anti-climatically, nothing happened. And then one by one, SG-1 stepped out of the gate and onto the world that they had designated as P4F-117.

“Well at least there aren’t any trees,” Jack O’Neill observed, looking around the rocky hollow that surrounded the Stargate and it’s DHD. The set up was fairly typical for the many worlds that SG-1 had visited, the Stargate standing on a dais with a few steps leading up to it and the DHD off to one side, placed so whoever operated it would be facing the Stargate. However, the hollow was surrounded on three sides by steep slopes a dozen feet high and in the fourth direction, a paved road lead away from the gate.

“This looks like Roman work,” Daniel Jackson mused as he stepped onto the slabs. “Someone made it to last.”

“Sure doesn’t look like it’s been very thoroughly maintained,” Jack pointed out, indicating one of the places where greenery was poking its way through the cracks between the slabs. “So you think the people here could have been Romans?”

“I thought Rome post-dated the Goa’uld presence on Earth,” Samantha Carter asked curiously.

“Aw don’t tell me you’re joining the rocks and ruins crowd,” Jack complained.

Sam rolled her eyes. “Some of us stayed awake in history class, sir,” she pointed out. “If you’d like I can start talking about the interesting astronomical date the MALP picked up.”

“Pass,” the Colonel grumped. “Alright Daniel, do you want to stop and dig this up or shall we go look at the other rocks that were reported?”

The archaeologist frowned and shook his head. “It’s an interesting anachronism – you’re right Sam, even the earliest estimates for when Roman roads were first made would put it hundreds of years after the Goa’uld left Earth, so it’s likely that this is just a parallel development -”

“Danny!”

Daniel blinked. “Jack?”

“Are we going?” Jack gestured down the road. “I know it’s not made of yellow bricks or anything but…”

“Ah, right.” Daniel joined the other three in walking along the road. A few hundred yards from the Stargate, the road bore around to the right.

“What would be the significance of a road made of yellow bricks, O’Neill?” Teal’c asked just before they were out of earshot of the Stargate.

.oOo.

In the end it took the team most of the day, marching steadily, to reach the ruins that had been spotted by the UAV. It wasn’t hard to find – the road lead directly to them, which was what had led Stargate Command to locate them in the first place. As far as that initial survey had revealed, the Stargate was located on an large island, perhaps two hundred and fifty miles long at its longest, and the ruins were on the coast, not quite thirty miles away.

“We really should have thought to bring bicycles,” Daniel noted as the ruins finally came into sight. “It’s not like they wouldn’t fit through the Stargate and this road would be perfect for them.”

“It’s a thought,” Jack conceded. “We’d have to teach Teal’c how to ride one though.” A wicked look crossed his face. “I’ll see if I can talk General Hammond into shelling out for a bike when we get back – all that paperwork has to be good for something – and show him at the weekend.”

“What is this bicycle?” Teal’c asked. “Is it similar to Sergeant Siler’s motorcycle?”

“Yeah, sort of,” agreed Jack. “Except lighter weight because there’s no engine, and you have to pedal it.”

Teal’c frowned. “I do not see the advantages of such a device.”

“It’s about two, three times as fast as walking,” Daniel explained. “A road like this would be ideal for them and we’d have saved hours.”

“And with no fuel there would be no logistical burden,” said Teal’c thoughtfully. “This sounds very useful.”

“And here we are,” Jack noted, pausing at extreme range for his P90 from the buildings. “Anyone see any signs of inhabitants?”

Sam lifted her binoculars and scanned the buildings carefully. “Nothing moving, sir. None of the usual debris I’d expect of anyone’s living there.”

“So either it’s empty or someone’s lying in wait,” Jack sighed. “Same old, same old. You’ve got point, Teal’c.”

“Understood,” the big Jaffa agreed and advanced slowly towards the small building complex, staff weapon held ready in both hands. Behind him, the rest of SG-1 fanned out, P90’s at the ready.

Nothing disturbed them as they approached but a small flock of birds exploded up from one of the side buildings as Teal’c pushed open the crude door that still covered the entrance to the largest building with a creak. When nothing else happened, the team swept through the building thoroughly but found no inhabitants or signs that anyone had lived her for a number of years.

“Looks safe to me,” Jack observed. “Probably because there’s jack all here.”

“There were hieroglyphics around the walls of the main courtyard,” Daniel observed, “But someone’s been fairly thorough about defacing them.”

“It is possible that this was once the private retreat of a System Lord,” Teal’c theorised. “Somewhere to rest when they desire privacy. It is rare and such sites are usually secret and well defended. Apophis maintained such a location where he could grow familiar with a new host body.”

“Sort of like Jack’s cabin?” Daniel asked innocently.

“Hey!” Jack protested the analogy.

“The principle seems similar,” Teal’c confirmed with the slightest hint of amusement. “However, since the buildings are in ruins, it is likely that their owner has abandoned them.”

“So he’s an ex-Goa’uld?” Jack asked.

“It is possible, O’Neill. However, he may have simply believed that the location had been determined, in which case he would have no further use for a place were he might be vulnerable to rival System Lords.”

“I’ll have a look over the ruins,” Daniel suggested. “Whoever defaced the hieroglyphics may have missed some clues about whoever owned the place and it’ll give Sam a chance to check those astronomical anomalies that were picked up.”

“Right,” Jack said, watching as the team’s two scientists began to get their nerds on. “I’ll, um, set up camp then. Say Teal’c, do you think there might be some fish in that sea?”

“It seems unlikely that there would be fish suitable for human consumption, O’Neill,” Teal’c replied as he shrugged off his backpack and indicated one of the outbuildings that could be quickly weather-proofed using the tents that they had brought with them.

.oOo.

“Sir,” Sam called from outside, “I think that you want to see this.”

Jack and Teal’c exchanged looks and picked up their weapons before leaving the building. Sam had set up an optical telescope in the middle of the courtyard and was crouched over it, looking through the eyepiece. “What do you have Carter?” Jack asked seriously.

“Big bad mojo,” she reported. “There’s some serious hardware in orbit, sir.”

“Goa’uld?” asked Jack, glancing up at the sky concernedly.

“Nothing that I recognise, sir. A -” Sam moved away from the telescope and shook her head before looking again. “Huh. For a moment there something looked like that ship from Star Wars. But no, nothing that’s obviously Goa’uld.”

“Uh, which Star Wars ship did you think it looked like?” Jack asked. “Death Star? Millennium Falcon?”

“That big one at the beginning,” Sam clarified. “The star destroyer. But it’s probably just something triangular that caught my eye – there’s a lot of different things up there.”

“Hmm.” Jack ran his hand through his hair. “Okay, let me have a look.”

First Jack and then Teal’c took a look, neither recognising anything up there as distinctively Goa’uld but two things were for sure. Firstly there was one hell of a lot of material in orbit, and not all of it was debris. Secondly, someone was active up there – one of the objects visible was manuvering under power.

Jack rubbed his chin. “Alright campers, time to pack up. We’ve either hit the jack pot or we’re in a lot of trouble and I don’t know which. Either way, we’d better get back to the Stargate and call it in. Did anyone see where Daniel was last?”

“DanielJackson was investigating the outbuildings behind the main structure, O’Neill,” Teal’c replied. “I will seek him out.” The big Jaffa departed quickly towards the back of the complex, already familiar with the general layout, while Jack helped Sam break down the telescope.

He found Daniel examining the wall of a kitchen with a handheld torch. “Oh, Teal’c. Looks like whoever went after the hieroglyphics in the courtyard didn’t care enough to check for the graffiti in the servants’ areas. There’s no writing of course but someone’s done this little set of carvings, looks like they were depicting Jaffa and the helmets of elite guards...”

Teal’c gave the carvings a quick glance. “A serpent guard, a hawk guard and a… I do not recognise the helmet of the last Jaffa, DanielJackson. Three Jaffa serving different Goa’uld is not uncommon in Jaffa jokes however.”

“It looks like the third Jaffa is getting the better of the other two,” Daniel pointed out. “That might mean whoever carved this was a servant of the same Goa’uld.”

“There is no time for further study, DanielJackson. A vessel has been detected in orbit of this world and O’Neill has decided we will return to the Stargate to report in.”

Daniel blinked. “A vessel? Is it, uh, is it the Goa’uld?”

“Unknown,” Teal’c replied, picking up Daniel’s backpack from where it was leant against the wall.


	2. Chapter One

“We’ve got trouble,” Jack reported as Teal’c and Daniel arrived at the entrance to the compound. He’d been scanning the area with night vision binoculars and he let them hang down against his chest as he heard the two of them. “Someone’s out there between us and the Gate.”

Teal’c frowned. “I can hear zat fire in the distance,” he observed in surprise. “I do not hear staff weapons however.”

“Yeah,” Jack agreed. “That’s what I can see. And it looks like there’s one hell of a lot of fighting going on in the hills. We’ll have to go well around them if we’re going to get to the Stargate.”

“Do you have any idea who’s fighting?” Daniel asked.

Jack shrugged. “The only people we know who use Zats are the Goa’uld. Could be that there’s some sort of internal dispute although I don’t know why they’d not use their staff weapons if they are.”

“Or it could be someone else who uses the same technology,” Daniel suggested. “Jack, if that’s the case then we have to make contact with them!”

“Report in first, Danny,” Jack advised. “We can make contact once General Hammond knows what the situation is, and by then maybe the fighting will have died down a little.”

Sam came out of the nearest building, carrying her own pack. “Do you have any ideas for a route back to the Stargate, sir?” she asked.

“According to the UAV reports, the coastal plain narrows to the north of us,” Jack explained. “And there’s some forest there that should give us some cover. So we’ll head that way four or five miles and then swing east towards the Stargate. It’ll take longer than following the road, but the fighting seems to be moving south as far as I can tell.”

.oOo.

Dawn found SG-1 trekking through the sparse pine forest that Jack had seen on the map. Even with night vision goggles, it had been slow going and they had only managed to reach the first hills an hour or so before.

“Colonel!” Sam called from behind Jack. “Is that…”

Jack groaned as he saw a familiar looking blue bolt of light slam into a tree trunk half a mile or so ahead. “So much for avoiding the fight,” he muttered. “Okay, let’s find some cover.”

“O’Neill!” Teal’c exclaimed from where he was picking up the rear behind Daniel. “There are motorised ground vehicles approaching from the west.”

“Great. Instead of avoiding the fight it looks like we’re going to be in the middle of this,” Jack noted. “At least whoever’s using the vehicles it’s unlikely to be Jaffa, ‘cause we’re not exactly packing for anti-tank work.”

Sam tilted her head as the sound of engines reached her. “That sounds more like an aircraft turbine,” she observed, backing up against a tree. “Not a piston set-up as in most diesel engines.”

“Less theorising and more hiding,” Jack ordered as he flattened himself against a tree trunk, P90 at the ready.

A moment later, the first of at least a dozen small tracked vehicles roared through the trees. It was hard to get a good view from Jack’s position but he saw at least one heavy weapon pintle-mounted and that the back of the vehicle was open, a towed field gun of some description bouncing along behind it. Two more of the vehicles went right past Jack and a fourth was almost parallel to him when a blue bolt too large to be from a zat gun slammed into it. The mini-tank skidded to a halt, acrid smoke pouring from the inside and crew bailing out in all directions. With typical SG-1 luck, one of them dived almost on top of Jack and froze as he locked eyes with the Air Force officer.

Without waiting, Jack brought his P90 around and butt-stroked the man, hoping to incapacitate him before he could draw any more attention. It was too late however and as the man, who was turbaned Jack noted absently, rather than wearing the helmet that he would have expected in an armoured crewman, flew backwards, face bloodied by the impact, he cried out in shock.

Immediately, the rest of the vehicle’s crew turned, bringing up sidearms Jack dived aside rather than shoot and blue bolts slashed through the air above him. Great, at least they were only using zats.

One of the crewmen went down as Daniel broke cover and opened up with his own zat gun, catching the three remaining soldiers in a cross fire. Another crewman fell to Daniel and then Sam screamed: “Look out!”

The archaeologist turned to see a large, grenade-like object tumbling before him, obvious fired from two mini-tanks that had changed direction to support their fallen comrades. He saw one of the mini-tanks hit by a blue blast and start smoking and then there was a blue flash, followed by blackness.

Jack swore as he saw Daniel drop as the blue zat effect that the ‘grenade’ had emitted hit him. He only hoped that it wasn’t powerful enough to have had lethal effect. Probably not, he decided as he noticed that one of the two crewmen remaining had been caught in the fringe of the zat-grenade’s effect and was also out of action. It was the work of a moment to drop the last of them but more crewmen were spilling out of the other two mini-tanks. Another grenade cane flying in his direction and he ran forwards, hoping to get inside it’s trajectory. The crewman in the cupola seemed startled that the unconventional approach worked and tried to yank the muzzle of his grenade launcher down to fire directly but Teal’c appeared, almost out of nowhere, and gave the man’s turbaned head a whack with his staff weapon.

Jack fired twice, hitting another crewman as he ran up alongside the mini-tank. Another crewman went tumbling out of the rear of the vehicle and Teal’c appeared at the back. “O’Neill!”

“See if you can get this thing moving!” Jack ordered. “It’s our best bet for getting out of here.”

“Indeed,” Teal’c agreed and ducked out of sight inside.

Jack followed and saw his friend cramming himself into what was evidently the driver’s seat. The colonel poked his head cautiously out of the cupola and almost crowned himself with the butt of the grenade launcher. “Doesn’t seem too complicated,” he muttered and brought the weapon around to bear on the crew of the last vehicle, apparently out of action. Pulling the trigger, he saw the first grenade smack into the ground, yards ahead of the soldiers, forcing them to scramble backwards. He adjusted and a second grenade slammed into a tree trunk behind them, putting all four of them on the floor in a flurry of blue sparks.

“Carter!” he shouted, looking around for the rest of his team.

“Here, sir!” came the familiar voice of his second-in-command and he looked down to see Carter dragging a stunned Daniel into the back of the little tank.

“Good going!” Jack shouted. “Teal’c! Hit it!”

There was a pregnant pause and then the tank jerked forwards, slowly at first and then with increasing speed.

“Yes!” Jack shouted. The fight was already falling behind them at the little tank accelerated away. Teal’c wove it in between the trees with increasing speed, heading east towards the Stargate. “Carter, are you and Daniel okay?”

“He’s just stunned, sir,” she replied. “Janet will probably want to look at him but it doesn’t look like it’s anything more than a standard case of getting zatted.” She paused. “There’s something wrong with getting zatted being considered ‘standard’ though.”

“Just be glad he didn’t hit his head on something for once,” Jack pointed out. “Maybe we should have got him one of those turbans for extra padding around his head.”

Teal’c veered to one side suddenly, throwing Jack against the side of the cupola. “What the hell…” Jack snapped and then ducked as a zat shot almost picked him off. “Dammit! Jaffa!”

They were indeed Jaffa, dozens of them, ranged along the slopes of a hill, all aiming staff weapons in their general direction. Crackling blue bolts flew towards them and Teal’c brought them around again, throwing Jack off as he tried to return fire with the grenade launcher.

“What the hell’s going on!” he demanded. “Those are staff weapons but they’re shooting like Zats!”

“I do no known, O’Neill,” Teal’c replied. “I -”

Whatever Teal’c had been about to say was lost as one of the shots managed to hit the vehicle and the engine cut out sharply. Smoke poured out of the interior, up around Jack, who instinctively ducked inside, groping for the helpless Daniel.

Despite the unfamiliar interior, Jack and Sam managed to bale out with Daniel and Teal’c followed them out, halting as he saw the reception committee waiting for them.

“Crap,” Jack noted as he saw a pair of Jaffa boots in front of him, and several more behind them. Looking up, the Jaffa in front seemed more perplexed than angry as he eyed the four members of SG-1.

“Jaffa,” the man ordered sharply and Jack tensed for a last effort to defend his team.

Zat’s cracked out and the last thing Jack thought before he was swallowed before darkness swallowed him was ‘No fair! He didn’t say ‘kree’!’

.oOo.

Jack woke in a cell. This wasn’t exactly unusual for him – something about being on SG-1 meant that he spent more time in various forms of confinement than he would if he was a regular at Colorado Springs drunk tank – and even before he opened his eyes he had to give this particular cell points for quality.

For one thing, he wasn’t chained to the wall or otherwise strapped down. In fact, he’d been laid out neatly on a bunk and someone had actually gone to the trouble of taking his boots off. Secondly, rather than the usual bare metal bunk or thin pallet, this bunk was actually quite yielding, it felt rather like an airbed in face, albeit a narrow and relatively thin one. He’d slept on far worse.

Opening his eyes, he saw a roof that was a brilliant white, and also looked as if it was perfectly smooth and seamless. Even the corners of the room were gently rounded. The bunk, rather than being placed against one of the walls, was actually on a low plinth in the middle of the cell, with the head against the back wall. At least he presumed that the wall was the back – the opposite wall was largely covered by what looked like frosted glass but he was willing to bet was no more breakable than the walls. There was no other furniture, no obvious ventilation and no sign of his boots. “Bastards.”

His jailors had apparently also gone through his pockets as the only thing in them when he checked were his hands. It wasn’t until he stood up that he noticed that one last item in the cell - a small, black rubber ball about the size of his hand.

Jack examined the ball carefully and then shrugged.

A couple of minutes later he was bouncing it off random walls. It was better than bouncing off them himself which was just about the only other alternative that he had.

.oOo.

Since the mysterious jailors had also taken his watch, Jack wasn’t entirely sure how long it was before the ‘glass’ wall slid smoothly up into the ceiling to reveal a squad of soldiers. Just to confuse him, the soldiers were neither the guys in turbans nor the Jaffa… no, wait. That was the Jaffa who had led the squad that caught them. Except he wasn’t wearing Jaffa armour and now that Jack got a look at him there was no tattoo on his forehead. And what sort of Jaffa walked around in cream slacks, a beret and an Ike jacket?

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Jack said. “If you’re not Jaffa then why were you running around in the get up earlier?”

The man’s lips quirked. “It was Halloween. Now, if you wouldn’t mind following me please?” The way that the soldiers held their pistols – and what sort of gun were they? Jack had never seen them before, looked almost like flintlocks without the actual flints – made it clear that the request wasn’t one that could be turned down.

“I’m fairly sure that’s it’s spring,” Jack said as he stood up. There was a name tag on the man’s uniform but Jack didn’t recognise the script.

“Well it’s a big universe,” the man pointed out, ushering Jack along a battleship-grey corridor lined with frosted glass panels. The floor had a slight give to it under Jack’s feet and he could feel through his socks that it was slight warmer than he would have expected. “I’m fairly sure it must be Halloween somewhere.”

“Great,” Jack conceded the point. Obviously no answers on that just yet. He glanced at the glass, wondering if any of the panels concealed his friends. “If we’re only going to talk trivia, how come there was a rubber ball in my cell?” He pulled it out of his pocket, where he’d automatically dropped it when the cell opened.

The man took it off him with a tsking sound. “It’s so that you don’t have to play with your own for entertainment. No one wants to see that.”

“My own… hey!”

At the end of the corridor was a security barrier that snapped open when the man walked up to it. Two guards came to attention, raising their right fists to slap against their left shoulders in what Jack guessed was a salute. So the guy with him was some sort of officer. Good to know, even though it didn’t give any immediate benefit. Jack started looking him over for rank badges. Knowing who the brass were had all sorts of side-benefits.

Through the security barrier, along a passage outside and then into a wider corridor and… holy shit, it was full of stars…

Jack halted in surprise as he saw that the new corridor had windows, albeit not much larger than the windows on an airliner. And the windows looked out on space, angled perfectly for the band of the Milky Way to be clearly visible. It took Jack a single gob smacked moment to notice that the stars were not visibly moving, so even if he had been brought onto a ship they didn’t seem to be going anywhere in particular.

The officer had a smug look on his face when Jack dragged his eyes away from the window. The sort of look that Jack’s own face displayed the first time he showed someone the Stargate and got to watch their surprise. He’d been set up, dammit. At least it wasn’t the sort of set up that was obviously hostile, but whoever set this up was a smooth operator…

“Isn’t it a bit dangerous having windows onto a corridor like this?” Jack asked, gesturing to indicate the immense length of the passage ahead of them, and extending almost as far in the other direction.

“There are numerous safety measures,” the officers assured him. “The risk really isn’t very great at all and it really is spectacularly useful for getting round the ship, plus the windows help with morale. Now, we are on a schedule, so please follow me.”

The destination wasn’t very far away at all as it happened – another passage leading deeper into the ship – and as they approached, another squad of soldiers escorted another prisoner out of it. “Teal’c, buddy. Are you okay?”

“I am uninjured, O’Neill. Daniel is also unharmed,” Teal’c managed to reveal before his escorts hustled him away.

“Where are you taking him?” Jack demanded.

“Back into confinement until a decision is made on your case,” the officer said, apparently surprised by the question. “Come now, you can’t just wander into the middle of a military exercise and then just walk away.”

Military exercise? They were shooting at eac- They were shooting zat’s at each other! Jack felt like kicking himself. All of a sudden it made sense, sort of. The ‘Jaffa’ had been an opforce, like the Army battalions at Fort Irwin that were thinly disguised as Soviet troops to provide realistic training for the US Army. And if these people had been training to fight against the Jaffa, then they must be well aware of the Goa’uld. Although in that case, who had the turbaned troops been? And what would the likely ‘conclusions’ drawn about Teal’c?

He was still weighing up this new information when the officer showed him into a small interview room and left him there, faced by a single, pencil-necked officer in the same uniform. Two of the soldiers followed Jack in and stood on either side of the door, facing Jack’s back. He could feel their eyes drilling into him.

“Colonel Jonathon O’Neill,” the officer greeted him. “Please, take a seat,” he said, gesturing to the chair on the opposite side of the room’s small table from him. Jack sat down and grimaced. Institutional chairs were the same all over the galaxy. The officer placed a card on the table and Jack recognised it as his own ID card.

“I’d say welcome to Angrezi,” the man said dryly, “But I’m afraid that the Angrezi aren’t feeling too welcoming at the moment – something about assaulting several of their soldiers and stealing an armoured vehicle. Since it was some of our personnel who actually apprehended you, we have custody at the moment. If you don’t mind answering a few questions then it should be possible to smooth matters over. On the other hand…”

Jack frowned. “What’s Angrezi?”

“That would be the planet that you were on. The soldiers you assaulted were members of the Padishah of Angrezi’s army involved in a training exercise. Now, perhaps you can tell me why you came to this planet?”

“We’re explorers,” Jack explained. “We didn’t know if the planet was inhabited or not, but the road to the Stargate – you know about the Stargate?”

He got a nod in response. “So you knew that the planet had been inhabited and came to take a look. So, you arrived – hmm, how long would you say you were on planet before that little skirmish?”

Jack frowned but didn’t see anything particularly damning about that detail. “We arrived fairly early the previous day Walked along the road to the ruins on the coast and then saw the fighting – well, the exercise, I guess -”

“Go on.”

“I’m not sure what you want to know,” Jack admitted. “I’m sorry about smacking the soldiers, but we didn’t know that they weren’t really shooting at each other and we didn’t want to get stuck in the middle of a battle.”

“I suppose that that makes sense,” the officer said and considered his notes. “So you came through the Stargate in the morning and then followed the road to the ruins of the old villa. How did you travel?”

Jack sighed, this was going to be a long conversation.

.oOo.

“Hmm, well I suppose that that covers everything,” the interviewer said at last, having questioned Jack extensively about what had happened since he arrived on P4F-117 and not at all about anything else. “You’ll have to wait until your accounts have been compared and a forensic investigation of the sites to compare your stories, but as long as it all checks out then the commander will explain matters to the Angrezi and you’ll be allowed to go.”

“Right,” Jack observed. “Feels kind of odd to go through all this and not get tortured. Nice change.”

“Torture?” The man looked amused. “You must have run into the Goa’uld then. Unimaginative devils. Torture’s just pointless sadism when you have access to modern lie-detecting equipment.”

“So how come you didn’t break that out?” Jack asked as he stood up and the two soldiers moved to cover him.

There was a dry chuckle from the officer. “You were under a lie detector for the whole interview, Colonel. It’s built into the chair.”

Jack stared at the chair in surprise. “Diabolical,” he admitted. “You’re really very good at this. Well, since you know that I’m telling the truth, why do you need to check anything else.”

“Come now, Colonel. You may think that you’re telling the truth, but that hardly means anything these days. What if you’ve been programmed not to know what you were really up to?”

“Oh.”

Sam was outside the room when Jack emerged, surrounded by yet another squad of soldiers, who were watching her with professional concern. “Good to see you, sir.”

“Same here, Carter,” Jack called as he was hustled away by his own escorts. “Teal’c says Danny’s okay too.”

.oOo.

“So what do you make of them?” asked the man sitting in a throne-like chair at the rear of the command centre.

“Their stories match up,” confirmed one of the two men standing in front of him, the officer who had captured Jack and SG-1. “And a survey of the old villa confirms the times that they were there. I don’t see how they could have been there at that time and also where the other activity took place.”

“Are you accusing us of lying,” demanded the other man hotly, his turbaned head snapping around to direct a ferocious glare at the man beside him. “This is -”

“Enough!” snapped the first man, rising from his command chair. “No one disputes the reports, your grace. However, it is possible that the presence of this group is simply a coincidence and that the attack was carried out by a third party.”

“Or perhaps they are merely a diversion,” the turbaned man accused. “A convenient cover for someone closer at hand…”

“Perhaps the next step should be to carry out a check on the Stargate,” the commander proposed, ignoring the accusation. “The activation records will show if anyone else has used it in the possible time frame.” He smiled thinly. “And if, your grace, someone else did arrive by the Stargate then they can hardly have left through it, not with several hundred of my men securing it. Which would mean that they must still be on the island.”

“The Stargate keeps a record of its activations?” asked the turbaned man in surprise. “I have never heard this.”

“I think I can safely say that I’ve used them for a little longer than you, your grace,” the commander pointed out reasonably. “Send a technical team out to the gate and I’ll have my men show you how it’s done.”

.oOo.

Jack blinked as he saw the door of his cell slide up into the ceiling. He’d done his damnedest to find another way out only to come up dry – even the air seemed to cycle only through from below the bed, which was pretty mind-boggling since it was an airbed. Since then he’d been simply trying to get some sleep, and wondering if (or more positively when) the still nameless captors of SG-1 would feed him.

Looking up, he saw the same corridor as before (not always a given) and the same officer, but behind him, other cells were being opened and Daniel, Sam and Teal’c were emerging from them. “Hey Danny. Long time no see.” He stood up. “So, are you letting us go and do we get our boots back?”

“Well, you can have your boots back,” the officer reported. “However there are a couple of little details that we need to clear up before you leave. The Admiral wants to talk to you about those.”

“The Admiral?” Jack asked. “I guess we’re working up the chain of command. So, what are you guys called? I just realised you never said who you are.”

“How terribly remiss of me. You are aboard the Confederacy of Free Systems warship Leonidas and I have the privilege of being Lieutenant von Pinn of the 33rd Heinessen Light Infantry Regiment.”

“The ‘Confederacy of Free Systems’?” Sam asked curiously. “Who are you free of?”

“Why, the Goa’uld,” von Pinn replied in surprise. “Surely you have encountered the self-important popinjays in your explorations?”

“You were once enslaved by the False Gods?” Teal’c asked.

Von Pinn shook his head. “Fortunately not. The Confederacy is sworn never to submit to their tyranny.” He gestured for them to follow him out of the cellblock. “Please, follow me. The Admiral is attending to a small matter of diplomacy and has invited you to join him for a light meal in a few moments. Your boots are waiting for you,” he added, opening the door to a small side room, “as well as facilities if you would like to tidy up.”

.oOo.

The Admiral apparently didn’t stay down on the deck with the rest of the peons, Jack noted. After giving them time to ‘tidy up’ in a room that conveniently had an attached washroom, von Pinn had led them deeper into the hull of the warship and up flight after flight of steps – there were lifts apparently but the young officer had advised that they were used only for emergencies or dignitaries who felt that their tender feet were too precious to be walked on for any great distance.

“How far up are we going?” Daniel asked.

“Oh, not much further,” von Pinn assured him. “The Admiral’s quarters are quite close to the command tower, for convenience and I’m sure you can understand that it wouldn’t make a great deal of sense to have the detainment facilities close to such an important area.”

Sure enough, after the next flight of stairs von Pinn led them away from the stairs and into a slightly more comfortably furnished deck. “Please wait here,” he said pleasantly, ushering them into an small lounge. “I’ll just find out if the Admiral is ready.”

Jack glanced around the room. It was a lot fancier than he’d expected – several well stuffed chairs and a couple of coffee tables. Coffee. He could really do with some coffee right now. The door closed behind them with the guards outside. “Is everyone okay?” he asked. “No concussion this time, Daniel?”

“No Jack, I’m fine,” the archaeologist protested. “They’ve been very civil so far, I had more trouble last time I went through customs on my way back from a dig – apart from getting zatted the first time.”

“So what do you make of them?” Jack enquired.

“Well they’re almost certainly not backed by the Goa’uld,” Daniel said. “No Goa’uld, not even the Tok’ra, would use this much technology – they use the bare minimum to get the job done and the rest is as low tech as possible to keep their slaves from learning too much.”

“But they’re human, right?”

“It seems like it. The Angrezi sounded like they might have originated from the Indian subcontinent. Von Pinn sounds germanic, but judging by his accent he’s more accustomed to something like Hindi as well. Punjabi possibly.”

“So they’ve got more than one culture then?”

“Yes. It’s possible that they come from several worlds that were colonised by Goa’ald and later abandoned.”

“But didn’t he say that they had never been enslaved by the Goa’uld?” Sam asked. “I mean, they had to come from Earth originally, so who else could have brought them out here?”

Jack looked at the last member of his team. “Teal’c? What do you make of this?” He paused. “Teal’c, what are you doing?”

The Jaffa turned away from the wall that he had pressed his ear against. “I can hear voices in the next room, O’Neill. I believe that someone is telling a story. To children?”

“Children on a warship?” Jack asked. “What is this, Star Trek?”

There was a cough from the door and Jack turned to see von Pinn standing in the doorway. “Well,” he said, diplomatically ignoring anything that might have been said in his hearing. “The Admiral is just about done, so if you’d like to follow me.”

He led to them next room and the door slid open to reveal a large room, furnished just as comfortably as the lounge but for at least a hundred occupants. A large buffet had been set up along one wall, and the past tense was appropriate for it was clear that the buffet had been ravaged by the dozens of the now quite sticky faced children gathered at one end of the room.

However it was the huge floor to ceiling window that caught the eyes of SG-1. Covering one long side of the wall, broken only occasionally by ornamental bracing, it showed a planet above them, presumably the same Angrezi that they had been captured on. And below the planet, above the long and tapering foredeck of the ship that they had been brought aboard, could be seen the sterns of more ships – diamond-shaped sterns with three huge thrusters lined within them, command towers rearing above them and, barely visible, tapering delta-shaped hulls reaching forwards.

“Someone’s gonna get sued over this,” Jack muttered to himself.

“Shh,” von Pinn hushed him, gesturing to the bearded man that the children were facing. He was wearing the same uniform as the lieutenant, but with a braid on his jacket epaulettes and he sat in a comfortable looking armchair with a large book in his lap. As they watched he closed the book with an air of solemnity.

“That was many, many years ago,” he said in a low, slightly raspy voice. “And still we remember them.”

“We remember them,” the children chanted back to him, almost ritualistically.

“We remember that few stood against many,” the man, presumably this mysterious admiral, rasped.

“We remember that few stood against many.”

“That free men stood against tyranny.”

“That free men stood against tyranny,” they chanted.

“And,” the admiral said, setting the book aside as his eyes began to glow with that familiar golden light, “that even a god-king,” his voice taking that booming quality that was the trademark of the Goa’uld, “can bleed!”

“HUA!” the children shouted, many of them leaping to their feet. “HUA!”

“HUA!” shouted von Pinn from beside SG-1. “HUA! HUA!” the soldiers behind them bellowed, making the same fist against shoulder salute that Jack had seen before. Their voices were almost as enthusiastic as those of the children, some of whom turned in surprise to see the new arrivals.

The Goa’uld smiled benevolently, letting the light fade from his eyes. “We still remember,” he repeated once more. “But now, my young Spartans, I believe that the hour grows late and – like Leonidas, I have emissaries to greet. Besides,” he pulled an antique looking pocket watch from his jacket. “I am sure that your parents are waiting to hear how your day was.”

There was a concerted ‘awwwww’ from the children and he shook his head firmly. “No no, I was told that you had all been especially good so that you could come up here and look down on Angrezi from the sky, eat my food and listen to an old snake tell you his stories. Don’t spoil it now.”

There was more shuffling of feet before the children began to leave the room in little clusters, more soldiers appearing to guide them away. “I thought you said that this Confederacy of yours had nothing to do with the Goa’uld,” Jack hissed to von Pinn.

“I said that we weren’t enslaved by the Goa’uld,” the lieutenant replied with a roll of his eyes. “I didn’t say we had never had contact with them. He led our ancestors to these worlds eons ago and has worked alongside us to make the Confederacy a reality. Admiral Ayodhya was honoured to carry him to Angrezi for the ceremonies to admit them to the Confederacy.”

“How kind of you to say so,” the Admiral said, brushing down his jacket as he stood up. “Please,” he said to SG-1, “seat yourselves. I’ve ordered a light meal be prepared but if you’d rather not wait, I don’t believe that the children finished absolutely everything at the buffet so please help yourselves.”

“So,” he said, eyeing them as they all gingerly took seats facing his. “You are the famous SG-1 whose exploits have become legend anywhere one can tap into the gossip of the System Lords. Three of the long forgotten Tau’ri, and of course the quite infamous shol’va Teal’c, once the First Prime to Apophis. I am honoured to meet you.”

“And you’re, well, that guy with the star destroyers?” Jack asked warily.

“Yes, well,” the Admiral said amiably. “They’re not really all that impressive. For impressive, you’d have to wait until we finish building the battle station.”

He’s not serious, Jack told himself. He doesn’t really know what that means in that context… does he? “Sounds like it would be quite a sight to see,” he said. “So, am I speaking to the man or the snake?”

“A little of both,” Ayodhya told him with a smile. Then he frowned. “Ah, I see. My apologies. I thought that I was talking to Colonel O’Neill. But I see that the Tau’ri have sent MacGuyver instead. Lieutenant, make sure that he has no paperclips or chewing gum on him.”

Jack’s eyes went wide. “You’ve been to Earth!” he accused. How else could he have known about the coincidental resemblance between Jack and an obscure TV actor?

“Why, yes,” Ayodhya – no, the snake - agreed. “Not with the Admiral of course, but in another host. I must admit I only discovered that you had found the Stargate again after Apophis discovered what had happened to Ra. Not that it’s at all relevant to the business at hand.”

“The business at hand?” Sam asked.

“Two days ago you arrived on Angrezi via the Stargate and after something of a hike, rummaged around in my old villa. Not that I object, you understand – I haven’t used it in almost four hundred years – but just for reference. All of this is exactly what you told my officers and I don’t doubt it for a minute. However,” and he leant forwards, eyes glowing once more, “there are two items of information that suggest that there may be more going on here than you have stated. Firstly, less than an hour before your arrival, someone else came through the Stargate. From the same coordinates as you. Quite a coincidence, eh? And secondly, about an hour before dawn, there was an attack on a small Angrezi armoury quite a distance to the south of my villa. Not a simulated attack as part of the exercises, a very real attack by soldiers with firearms very similar to yours that left over a dozen of their soldiers dead. Now, is there anything that you want to tell me?”


	3. Chapter Two

“From the same co-ordinates?” Sam asked. “You mean the same gate? That’s impossible – I was in earshot of the Stargate for at least an hour before we came here and the only time it activated was when another team came back.”

“Oh really?” Ayodhya said a mite sceptically. “Well, we do have some conflicting information then, don’t we. I don’t suppose that you have any ideas how this contradiction can be resolved?”

“You’re the one who says that they came from the same place,” Jack pointed out. “How to you know -”

“Of course,” Sam said suddenly. “You said that the coordinates were the same for both arrivals – you mean the coordinates on the gate, don’t you?”

“That’s correct,” the Admiral said. He frowned and then his eyes glowed. “I think I see where you’re going Captain, please continue.”

“Well those coordinates don’t specify a particular gate,” explained Sam. “They refer to the location of the gate, and not all that precisely. Basically they track the position of stars and when they’re dialled they open up the primary gate in the vicinity of that star. But if there’s more than one gate active – you remember how we wound up in Antarctica, Colonel?”

“Yeah,” Jack said, shivering slightly at the memory. “So there’s another gate in the solar system and someone’s using it? Little green men from Mars.”

“There’s another Stargate on Earth,” Sam reminded him. “The gate from Antarctica was shipped back to the States for more study…”

Jack frowned. “Aw crap. You think someone’s using it to run their own project behind our backs?”

“Let’s face it, Jack,” Daniel reminded him. “There are more than a few people in the government who want us to take a more aggressive stance in obtaining alien technologies. If some of them got hold of the other gate…”

“This is all very entertaining,” Ayodhya pointed out, “but even if I take your word for this, which the Angrezi may not, there’s no actual proof. And I’m not about to screw up the negotiations with the Padishah – who takes attacks on his soldiers rather personally – by letting the closest thing he has to culprits just walk away.”

“Yeah, you’re a real prince,” Jack snorted.

“Yes, it’s one of my titles,” the Goa’uld confirmed. “Beyond that, I’m a politician, Colonel. Surely as a soldier you’re used to being screwed over by that profession. Unless of course you have any ideas of how to prove this theory of Captain Carter’s?”

Teal’c frowned suspiciously at Ayodhya. “If you can determine past uses of the Stargate then can you not check for departing wormholes?” he asked.

Ayodhya nodded, smirking slightly. “I wondered whether any of you would think of that. Yes, my people can run such a check and we have. All the activity since your arrival can be accounted for our own activities in the exercise – bringing the 33rd Heinessen through to simulate a Jaffa attack and so forth. So unless whoever came through from Earth had a ship waiting for them, they’ll still be on that island. Now if only I had a way of finding them…”

“So you want us to hand them over to save our own skins?” Jack asked, in disbelief.

“The question isn’t whether or not I want them handed over, Colonel,” Ayodhya explained reasonably. Then he grinned wickedly. “The question is whether you want to be released enough that you’re willing to hand them over to, as you put it, save your skins.”

There was an uncomfortable silence as SG-1 looked at each other.

“So you’re a Goa’uld,” Jack said. “How’s that working out for you?”

“Very well thank you.”

“Do you have a name of your own or should I call you ‘that snake inside the Admiral’?”

“My name is Nekhrun, Colonel,” the Goa’uld replied in a booming voice. “I am sure that your son can tell you all about me.”

“My son!” exclaimed Jack, rising to his feet, face red with anger.

Nekhrun frowned, apparently surprised. “Yes, your son – Doctor Daniel Jack’s Son. I can only presume that he favours his mother…”

“It’s a different Jack,” Sam inserted quickly, in the not entirely unreasonable fear that her commander would do or say something regrettable – uh, Daniel’s father that is. Not Colonel O’Neill.”

For the first time the Goa’uld looked slightly disconcerted. “Really?” He muttered something that only Teal’c could make out – “So much for my highly paid support staff.” – and then shrugged. “Nonetheless…”

“Nekhrun, right,” Jack agreed. “Is that ringing any bells for you, Daniel, Teal’c?”

“He’s an obscure part of Egyptian mythology,” Daniel said hesitantly after a moment in which Teal’c remained silent. “A god of darkness. The few references that have been found suggest that he rebelled against Ra and later that Ra tried to excise him from history. If I recall correctly he was the god of bats too and had the ears and wings of a bat.”

Nekhrun smirked viciously and ran one fingertip along the curve of his right ear. “I’m in disguise,” he explained. “As for being a rebel god… well that’s about half-right, which isn’t bad after all this time. No great surprise that the Shol’va over there doesn’t remember me – the Goa’uld only like stories about how their enemies are crushed, if they could get away with it they wouldn’t let anyone know about Anubis either. They’re such cretins. Information like that always causes trouble when it gets out.”

“Half right?” Jack asked sarcastically. “So you’re not a rebel?”

“I’m sure that this will break your heart, Colonel,” Nekhrun chuckled. “But I’m not actually a god, I’m just an egotistical parasitic snake wrapped around someone else’s spinal cord.”

“I, uh, knew that already,” Jack replied.

“As do I. Though I would not have expected to hear one of the False Gods admit to it,” Teal’c added.

“That would be where the whole ‘excised from history’ came from,” explained Nekhrun.

Sam leant forwards. “So you’re a Tok’ra?” she asked hopefully.

Nekhrun’s smile dropped off his face. “That band of incompetents?” he sneered. “Certainly not! They’ve been ‘against Ra’ for about five thousand years, Captain Carter, and what exactly have they accomplished? Not a thing. You’re the ones who defeated Ra, not that bunch of second-rate skulkers. No, no. I’m in this for myself – I’m just smart enough to know that solid alliances work better, and are more fun, than simply using people.”

“The Tok’ra don’t use people!” Sam protested.

“Hah!” Nekhrun sneered. “When the Tok’ra get rooted out by the Goa’uld do they stop to help the people they’ve been sheltering with? Not in my experience! They run away like kicked puppies and sacrifice their human pawns to protect themselves. Utterly worthless as allies. I wouldn’t join them on a wager.”

“You didn’t kill Ra either though,” Daniel pointed out. “However little the Tok’ra have accomplished, what have you done against the System Lords?”

The Goa’uld raised one eyebrow. “You don’t think I’m going to spill all my plans to you now, do you? Please, wait until I’ve locked you up in an easily escaped death-trap first, we have to abide by the courtesies of the situation.” He shook his head. “However, if you don’t mind having the obvious pointed out to you, the Confederacy of Free Systems is an interstellar polity with a total population larger than that of Earth or of any individual System Lord’s entire domain and unlike Earth or the Goa’uld’s slaves, most of my people aren’t peasant farmers. And the Confederacy has military might sufficient to hold every one of our systems against anything less than a concerted effort by multiple System Lords. That’s what I’ve accomplished, Doctor Jackson. The only reason that I didn’t dethrone Ra years ago was that doing so would very likely unite the other major System Lords against me and I’m not ready for that. How does that compare to the scanty resources of the Tok’ra, would you say?”

“Big honking spaceships win,” Jack conceded. “But it still looks like you’re just another Goa’uld making a power play.”

“I object to the ‘just another Goa’uld’ remark,” responded Nekhrun, “although the rest of it is quite correct. This is a power play, Colonel. What’s wrong with that?”

“Let me guess, this Confederacy isn’t a democracy, is it?”

“No Colonel, it isn’t. There are some democratic politics at low levels but it’s more of a -” he hesitated. “Well, I’m no political theorist, but I suppose that the answer would be that it’s a constitutional monarchy – and no, I’m not the monarch – with a feudal gentry and a rather complicated senate stuck between the two. It’s worked quite well for the last couple of hundred years.”

There was a knock on the door and a moment later it slid open to reveal von Pinn, leading a small group of soldiers carrying trays of food. “Your pardon, Admiral, but the meal you ordered is ready and there is a message from the Padishah’s Minister of Foreign Affairs.”

“You know,” Nekhrun said thoughtfully. “I’d respect the man more if his office didn’t sound like he was responsible for covering up for the Padishah diddling the locals on state visits to other planets. Alright, what does he have to say?”

Von Pinn cleared his throat after what looked rather like a snicker to Jack. “Stripped of the colourful language, he wants to know when the Angrezi military police will be able to take possession of the malefactors responsible for the incidents that interrupted the exercise yesterday. Apparently the trial is going to be quite public.”

“Oh the joy,” the Admiral growled. “The idiot’s probably advertising it planet wide. What a fucking circus.”

“Well the Padishah hasn’t left the capital since his state visit to Heinessen last year,” von Pinn pointed out. “Possibly he hasn’t had any diddling to cover up for.”

Nekhrun paused. “Please don’t throw my words back at me, Lieutenant. Not when there are outsiders around. If nothing else, they won’t know which one of us you’re sassing.” He sighed heavily. “I suppose I can talk to him while our guests are eating. Please excuse me,” he added to SG-1. “I’m just going to go… talk… to the Minister of…” sigh “Foreign Affairs. I would rather face a thousand deaths, I really would.”

“Is the Minister of Foreign Affairs really that bad?” Jack asked von Pinn, once the Admiral had left the room.

Von Pinn considered the question thoughtfully and then nodded his head vigorously. “One of the major reasons that the Padishah has been so enthusiastic about joining the Confederacy is that he won’t have to deal with another generation of – oh, the Ministerial positions on Angrezi are hereditary – another generation of that family handling his Foreign Affairs. Of course, the general idiocy is only to be expected: the man’s trying to protect his family’s political influence and it’s not like there had been any Foreign Affairs between the Padishah’s illustrious predecessors uniting Angrezi and first contact with the Confederacy. At least Lord Nekhrun is hosted by Admiral Ayodhya this time, not his usual host. Among the Minister’s little faults is that he’s a raving bigot who refused to believe that she could possibly be anyone of importance.”

“He has a female host?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know all the details,” von Pinn confessed, “I’ve only served with Lord Nekhrun twice before, but I gather that he customarily selects his hosts from a particular family and only shares with outsiders like Admiral Ayodhya when service to the Confederacy requires it, which isn’t more than a fifth or so of the time. His current host is a very sweet lady who’s been with him for a couple of generations. You’ll probably meet her if you don’t wind up in prison.” He gestured towards the table were the meal had been laid out. “Please, help yourselves.”

Jack shrugged. “Sure. Why don’t you join us.”

The lieutenant hesitated, “Ah, that might -”

“Please,” Daniel asked. “It would feel very rude to eat while you didn’t.” He gestured to one of the seats. “The Admiral said that the Confederacy was ‘a couple of hundred years old’, and I was wondering…”

.oOo.

When Ayodhya returned to the room, he found the five involved in a spirited conversation and paused in the doorway to listen.

“You seem to be on pretty good terms with Nekhrun given you’ve only served with him a couple of times,” Jack was saying. “I don’t think I’d throw my commander’s words back at him like that.”

Von Pinn smiled. “I said that I didn’t know Lord Nekhrun very well, Colonel,” he explained. “But Sario Ayodhya and I are have known each other for years. He commanded the assault transport Iskander back when I was just an Ensign and he was instructing at the War College when I attended.”

“And judging by the way that you punched through the Padishah’s Fourth Cavalry in the exercise, you must have been paying some attention,” Ayodhya advised and von Pinn almost jumped out of his seat, having had his back to the door. “No need to rise. I trust,” he added, looking at SG-1, “that the Lieutenant has been a tolerable host?”

“No complaints,” Jack told him. “Are you going to let us in on the secrets of your conversation or will you just hint around?”

“Hmm,” the Admiral said, sitting himself down at the table. “Decisions, decisions.” When he looked up, Jack was certain suddenly that it was the Goa’uld who was addressing him. “It is time for you to decide, Colonel, whether you will assist me in locating the bandits who attacked the Angrezi or whether you will share their fate when they are captured. And they will be captured, do not doubt that. The Angrezi have confirmed that they are happy for me to remove the Stargate immediately and then search the island inch by inch.”

“Then why do you want our assistance?” Sam asked. “You don’t need us.”

Nekhrun smiled thinly. “Such a search will take time, Captain Carter. However, whoever attacked the Angrezi was presumably trained in much the same way as yourselves. You therefore have a much better chance of predicting their behaviour and shortening the delay that this is causing to the negotiations.” He leant back in his chair. “And there are also the strategic consequences of throwing the four of you into an Angrezi dungeon to rot. You’ve proven to be quite a goad to the System Lords and as long as they’re focused upon you, they are substantially less likely to blunder across the Confederacy.”

“So you’re perfectly happy for Earth to fight the Goa’uld while you sit back and spectate?” Jack asked. “Are you sure you aren’t a Tok’ra?”

There was a flash of anger in Nekhrun’s eyes but his voice was dispassionate as he said: “What I am willing to do for the Tau’ri is contingent upon what the Tau’ri are willing to do for me. It is entirely probable that your people can be valued allies. Certainly, the Confederacy can provide technology to you well in advance of the gear that was stolen from the Angrezi. I am not obligated to you however and nor are my people.”

“Why should we trust you?” Teal’c asked grimly. “You are a Goa’uld.”

“That’s up to you,” Nekhrun said flatly. “If you don’t trust me then throw yourselves on the mercy of the Angrezi Courts of Justice. I don’t expect them to execute you, but when they sentence someone to life imprisonment I’m told that they mean it quite literally. Maybe you will be resourceful enough to escape, but I would not be inclined to wager on you doing so.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed. “And if we do help you, then what?”

“Then you will be free to return home, immediately that the actual culprits are captured,” Nekhrun promised. “I’ll even throw in an invitation to attend all the pomp and ceremony of the Angrezi joining the Confederacy. Once that happens they’ll have quite a lot of surplus military hardware to dispose of and, who knows, maybe they’ll be interested in selling it off to defray the costs of integrating the Padishah’s forces into the Confederacy’s Fleet.”

Sam’s eyes went wide and she looked at Jack. That was… a formidable carrot to dangle in front of Stargate Command. The Angrezi were clearly at least as advanced as the United States in terms of military hardware, even if the zat weapons were discounted.

“What will you do to whoever did attack the Angrezi?” Daniel asked. “Will they get thrown into prison?”

“Without a doubt.”

“Jack…” Daniel looked appealingly at Jack, who closed his eyes for a moment.

“Okay.”

“Jack!” “O’Neill?”

“Dammit,” Jack snapped. “Whoever did this brought this on themselves. But I want to see them,” he added to Nekhrun. “Which means going down with whoever you send to capture them. And going down armed.”

The Goa’uld nodded, a satisfied look on his face that made Jack want to punch it. “Certainly, Colonel.” He turned to von Pinn. “Andre, I think it would be best if the Angrezi carried the operation out. Please contact General Soor and have him prepare some troops, you can handle liaison.”

Von Pinn rose to his feet and saluted, fist to shoulder, clicking his heels. “Immediately, my Admiral.”

“Clown,” Ayodhya sighed as the younger man left the room.

.oOo.

Teal’c had still not said anything by the time SG-1 had reached what was evidently a prep room. Von Pinn was waiting for them, dressed in field gear that didn’t look very different from their own. On the bench in the middle of the room were the team’s own packs, although not their weapons.

“The Angrezi aren’t very keen on having suspected criminals armed,” the lieutenant explained, “So we’ve come to a compromise – they’ll provide you with stunners of the same kind used in training exercises so at least you won’t be armed with lethal weapons.”

“Not lethal?” Sam asked. “But what if someone was shot twice?”

“Twice?” von Pinn asked. “Oh, you’ve only seen the Goa’uld versions. Our stunners are a little different, we have to deliberately select for lethal effect, and stun shots won’t kill no matter how many of them hit.”

Jack whistled. That implied that the Confederacy had a much better understanding of how Zat’s worked than anyone had managed yet on Earth. Of course, he reminded himself, they’d also had almost a hundred times as long to study them.

“Other than that, all your gear should be here,” von Pinn confirmed. “The weapons and ammunition have been packed away but we can send them down as soon as the targets have been apprehended.”

“Right,” Jack said, sling his pack over his shoulder. “Let’s get this over with.”

Von Pinn gestured to the room’s other door and SG-1 filed through it to see a small room with a ring transporter. “Drop us down to the armoury,” he ordered and the metal rings appeared around the five of them.

A moment later, the rings disappeared and they were standing on a beach. Above them, a cliff-face rose up and Jack could see openings in it that would have looked natural were it not for the artificial lights inside them and the dozen or so mini-tanks outside, half of them open topped, that were being loaded by dozens of turbaned soldiers.

“General,” von Pinn said, saluting a tall man who was standing apart from the activity. “Lieutenant von Pinn of the 33rd Heinessen Light Infantry Regiment, reporting with the experts.”

“It’s funny,” the general observed, before returning the salute, “how much these experts resemble the louts who beat up some of my men and stole a cavalry vehicle when I was trying to roll up your lines. There are a lot of unhappy people trying to decide how that affected their betting.”

“Glad to hear that we weren’t any trouble,” Jack joked, drawing a frosty look from the General.

“That remains to be seen. Colonel Rao will be assisting you in this search, Lieutenant.”

Von Pinn saluted again as the General stalked away. “Thanks Jack. Please don’t try that with Colonel Rao – his regiment is the one I chewed up during the exercise and he’s not well known for his sense of humour at the best of times.”

“Ah,” Jack said, somewhat at a loss for words as von Pinn walked over towards one of the vehicles, leaving the four of them alone for the first time.

“Maybe we should let Daniel do the talking,” Sam suggested.

“Hey, I can be diplomatic,” Jack protested.

“Maybe you shouldn’t let me do the talking,” Daniel said in a worried tone of voice. “I’m really not sure about this, Jack.”

“I know Daniel,” he admitted. “I’m not a hundred percent on it either, but it’s got us on the planet and near the Stargate. Let’s face it, if these people did attack the Angrezi then they’re not doing Earth any favours and this might be the only way to repair the situation.”

“And what if Nekhrun betrays us?” Teal’c asked in a voice that made it clear that he considered that to be more than merely a possibility. “We will have been his agents in capturing his enemies.”

“Maybe – but we’ll be here, on the spot and we’ll be armed. At least here we can have some sort of control over the situation,” pointed out Jack. “Look, I know that this isn’t ideal but it’s what we’ve got to work with.”

“Colonel!” von Pinn called from the back of one of the mini-tanks. “Come have a look at this map would you?”

.oOo.

“There are several different routes that they could have taken,” Jack noted as he examined the map, which contained considerably more information on the island’s topography than the relatively quickly compiled map that the SGC had provided based upon a single UAV survey. “Do you know if they took a vehicle with them?”

“Not from the armoury,” Colonel Rao replied. The Colonel was even larger than Teal’c and appeared to be utterly focused on his responsibilities. “All of those here have been accounted for. However, we cannot rule out the possibility that they might have brought a vehicle with them. To have reached here on foot within the required timeframe would not be impossible, but it would be extremely challenging.”

“Yes,” Jack said thoughtfully, looking at the ridges that separated the armoury from the location of the Stargate. “There would have been tracks though… Did you find any when you searched?”

Rao shook his head. “Unfortunately, several of our transports had unloaded outside the armoury in the hours before the raid. We have not managed to identify anything out of the ordinary, but such could easily have been disguised by our own tracks.”

“No tracks for vehicles were located at the Stargate,” von Pinn advised. “My scouts would have noted them during the exercises.”

“So they were probably on foot,” Jack mused. “The road doesn’t lead in the right direction.”

“Unless,” Teal’c said thoughtfully and then hesitated, seeming almost reluctant. Then he frowned. “Unless they only used the road for a short distance.”

“If it was only a short distance then my scouts would have found traces,” von Pinn objected.

“Not if they travelled in the air,” Teal’c pointed out. “The land above the cliff is clear and quite even. A light aircraft could use it as a landing strip.”

“Did you check for that?” Jack asked Rao, giving Teal’c a grateful look.

“We checked for ground vehicles,” the officer replied. “What markings should we expect a light aircraft from your world to make? We do not manufacture powered aircraft that could pass through the Stargate.”

“Narrow parallel tracks,” Sam advised. “Like those of two or more bicycles moving side by side. Er, a bicycle is -”

“Those, we do manufacture,” Rao interrupted her. “I will have my men search again. If you are correct however, we cannot track the passage of the raiders and must determine their hiding place.”

“It would have to be somewhere near the Stargate so that they’d know when they were clear to use it,” Jack pointed out. “And somewhere with a landing area. There can’t be too many places like that.”

.oOo.

Jack was perhaps being a little overoptimistic. As it turned out, there were some tracks on the grass above the armoury that Sam was sure indicated the presence of three ultra light aircraft. Colonel Rao had a thing or two to say to the soldiers who had carried out the initial search for tracks having not reported them, but even he had to admit that he wouldn’t have expected them to indicate the presence of an aircraft.

Unfortunately, Sam also calculated that the space necessary for such an aircraft, laden with two men and the missing equipment, could be quite a bit shorter than had been assumed, increasing the short list of areas to be checked up past a hundred sites.

“The most likely places are those in this area,” Jack decided, indicating the mountains near the centre of the island. “If they’re travelling by air then they would probably want a refuge that’s hard to reach on the ground, to make it less likely for someone to blunder over them. Daniel, you’ve got the map we brought?”

Daniel looked at him for a moment. “Yes, wait a moment.” He opened up one of his backpack’s side-pockets and produced the photo-recon map.

“That’s not much of a map,” von Pinn observed, looking at it and then back to the detailed maps that they had been working off.

Jack smirked. “But,” he pointed out, “If they have a map then this is probably about as good as it gets for them. Now look.” He tapped his finger on the area he’d pointed at. “On your map I can see at least a dozen areas that they could use, but from this one there’s two… no, three place they could be. Here, here and here. So those would be the best places to start.”

“Those are going to be difficult to get to,” von Pinn noted. “I’ve seen that plateau,” he added, tapping one of the sites, “and I’m not sure I could get up there without climbing gear.”

“We will require aircraft in any event,” Rao declared. “Finding them is of no use unless we can pursue them should they flee.” He picked up a handset from inside the cavalry vehicle. “This is Rao,” he declared. “I require the use of a gunship squadron. My priority is Immediate-Actual.”

.oOo.

The gunships were roughly equivalent to a Russian Hind, Jack decided, although since the Angrezi apparently preferred vectored-thrust to rotors the profile was completely different. However the essentials were the same: each was heavily armed and could carry an infantry fire team (or SG-1 plus von Pinn) in the rear. He wondered if this was another subtle sales pitch by Nekhrun, a theory that he was only slightly distracted from by von Pinn’s slightly pale face.

“Don’t you like flying, Lieutenant?” he asked.

“I’m very happy in Confederate assault shuttles,” the infantry officer replied a touch irritably. “But with all respect to the Angrezi’s engineering, these crates don’t have quite the same safety record.” His grip on a stanchion noticeably tightened as the gunship banked and outside the window Jack could see a pine-covered hillside flying past them.

“Do you think the pilot heard you?” enquired Jack and von Pinn responded by using the index finger of his free hand to move the corner of his eye up and down a couple of times, which Jack guessed was probably some sort of rude gesture.

“Do you want to be armed or not?” he asked, indicating the small box that he had brought aboard.

Teal’c reached down and pulled the box onto his lap before opening it to reveal four sidearms of the same kind that Jack had seen the Angrezi using before. Once again he was reminded of revolutionary era pistols – long barrelled with short, rounded grips.

“Okay, you see those levers on the top?” von Pinn asked. “Those are the selector switches – currently they’re all up, which means that they are safe. Normally, taking it down one notch sets it as lethal but these are training weapons so it doesn’t make any difference – still safe. The bottom notch is the stun setting which is the same as hitting someone with a Zak’nik’tel once. There is a grip safety so it won’t fire unless you’re holding it, but it’s quite sensitive so you don’t have to be holding it very firmly for it to fire.”

Sam took one of the guns out of the box and held it in firing position, aiming at the rear door. “The grip seems a bit awkward,” she complained with a grimace.

Von Pinn glanced over, seemingly glad for a distraction as the gunship banked around another bend in the ridgeline. “You’re holding it too low,” he said. “You… ah, I was wondering why your guns had such large butts -”

Jack stifled a snigger.

“- you use your index fingers to work the triggers. You should lay your finger along the stunner’s barrel and hold the trigger with your middle finger. It’s a better way to aim – just point the index finger and the whole gun follows.”

Sam complied found that he was correct. “Right. That wouldn’t work with our sidearms though – the slid would take my thumb off if I tried.”

That elicited a shudder from von Pinn. “Remind me to never try using one of your Tau’ri firearms,” he muttered. “They sound more dangerous to the user than the target.”

“Remember not to try using Tau’ri firearms,” Teal’c reminded him, helpfully.

“…thanks. I’ll remember that.”

There was a chime from above and then the pilot’s voice came back over the speaker mounted on the ceiling. “We’re one minute out from the first site. We’re coming straight down on it, disembark on the bounce ‘cause I’m not hanging around in the dirt a second more than I have to.”

The rest of SG-1 took their weapons and von Pinn hit a control, lowering the ramp that formed the rear (and only) hatch to the passenger compartment. Trees were still moving fast underneath them and two more gunships were visible trailing their ride. “I suggest you brace yourselves,” he advised. “Angrezi jump infantry like to get very macho about the bounce of a hard landing and our friend up front sound like he’s going to uphold their honour in front of the foreign visitors.”

There was a laugh from the loudspeaker and all of a sudden the gunship plunged downwards, almost shaking a startled Daniel free of his own handgrips, almost in a freefall towards the ground below.

“If anyone has any prayers that might help the altimeters work better…” von Pinn suggested, looking almost cheerful now that the gunship was unquestionably headed for the floor.

There was a howl from above as the turbines came back to full power and then a crunch that rattled Jack’s teeth as the gunship hit the forest floor and quite literally bounced briefly back into the air. Von Pinn flung himself out the back before it hit ground again, so suddenly that for a moment Jack thought he had simply fallen, and then instinct from his own parajump days took over and he hurled himself after the lieutenant with the rest of SG-1 following, Daniel half-dragged by Teal’c. There was a roar and then the gunship was in the air again along with its comrades, leaving clusters of soldiers scattered around the forest. If it wasn’t for the turbans that were under the helmets and the unfamiliar weapons, they could have been any of Earth’s elite infantry units as they fanned out through the trees.

“Anything?” Jack asked quietly as von Pinn listened to the chatter on the headset he was wearing. Colonel Rao had been quite firm about not sharing access to the tactical net with the ‘experts’.

The soldier shook his head. “No one’s been sighted,” he confirmed. “Once the Colonel’s sure we’re not about to be attacked, he’ll start looking for tracks. It shouldn’t take long.”

“The immediate area is clear,” Rao told them, ghosting out of the trees on silent feet that would have shocked Jack if he wasn’t already familiar with Teal’c’s easy field craft. “No one has sighted any tracks so far but the men have only been able to make a cursory examination while securing the area. They shall check more thoroughly now while the gunships search for infra-red sources.” Without waiting for a response, he moved on through the trees.

“Abrupt, isn’t he?” Daniel observed.

“He’s a proud man,” von Pinn advised. “The Fourth Cavalry are an elite unit among the Padishah’s soldiers but they haven’t had a real enemy since before he was born and the rough handling they got yesterday must sting.” He grimaced. “In fairness, I really didn’t expect to have as much difficulty with them as I did.”

“Are you experienced in fighting the Goa’uld?” Teal’c asked.

“Not a Goa’uld,” admitted von Pinn. “But I’ve fought Jaffa a couple of times. Not in open field operations though.”

.oOo.

The site proved to be a disappointment and Rao summoned the gunships to collect the infantry before moving on to the next location. This time the craft swooped in more gracefully and landed without more than the lightest bumps.

“They aren’t bad,” Jack admitted. “You don’t use these?” he asked von Pinn.

“We have assault shuttles,” he replied as they went up the ramp of ‘their’ gunship. “Same job, more or less, but larger and they can handle surface-to-orbit and vice-versa. Actually, one of the things that we’ve been working with the Angrezi on is an update of this so that we’ll have something more economical for moving small groups around on planets - so I suppose I’d better get used to this.”

“I feel so honoured,” the pilot retorted across the intercom and Sam chuckled, then had to grab a stanchion as the gunship lifted off before the ramp was fully raised. “The next site isn’t far,” he added.

“Do you have similar aircraft,” von Pinn asked. “You seem quite comfortable with the general tactics.”

“Yes,” Jack admitted. “We don’t use vectored thrust, well not for this sort of aircraft, but we use external rotors for vertical-take-off-and-landing aircraft.”

“External rotors… wouldn’t they be quite vulnerable to combat damage?” asked von Pinn in concern.

“To an extent,” agreed Jack. “but they’re difficult to target so not as much as you might think.”

“And do you fly them?”

Jack shook his head. “I mostly flew fixed wing before I went into the special operations line of work,” he replied. “What about you? You said that you started out on an assault transport?”

“Oh yes, the good ship Iskander,” von Pinn agreed with a grin. “Assault transports are assault shuttles writ large – designed to get down through an atmosphere and deploy a division as fast as possible. They’re an absolute nightmare for logistics and generally pretty bad for keeping troops up to speed in their field skills. So naturally, as a green ensign fresh out of the academy, I fell in with bad company almost immediately. I mean, of course, my platoon, who were only too pleased to have an officer who had a lower than average chance of noticing them slacking off.”

“Let me guess,” Jack said. “You didn’t notice them slacking off.”

“Worse than that,” von Pinn said with a wince. “Admiral – he was Captain then – Ayodhya noticed. The first I knew was when he turned up outside my quarters, dragged me off of one of the assault shuttles – the very one where he’d spotted my first sergeant running an impromptu casino, I later found out – and very firmly explained to me that I wasn’t doing my job and that if I didn’t get my act together then I could expect a transfer to the general service division to count beans for the rest of the mandatory service that I’d agreed to when I was commissioned.”

“As you can imagine, I –”

“Incoming fire!” the pilot shrieked and hurled the gunship sideways towards the side of the valley. There was a sudden impact as something smashed into the left wing…

And then a crash as the right wing hit a tree and the gunship went spinning…

.oOo.

Sam groaned as she lifted her head off the hillside. The last thing she remembered before hitting the ground was the brief sensation of flying and before that, seeing the rear hatch of the gunship explode away from the rest of the aircraft after von Pinn yanked on a lever next to it. He must have blown it open, she realised, in order that they could bail out.

A crackle of zat fire convinced Sam to hug the ground and she glanced around to see that she was next to a low outcropping of rock and as far as she could tell, not the one being shot at. On the other hand, the outcropping was probably the reason that her right arm responded with stabbing pain when she tried to move it – she must have hit the rock before she came to a rest.

“No one make another move!” an almost familiar voice shouted from only a few yards away. “I’ve got a hostage.”

Wincing as she did so, Sam dragged herself forwards to look in the direction of the voice, still trying to place why she felt that it was familiar. It wasn’t von Pinn, not any member of SG-1… nor had it the slightly sing-sing accent she’d noticed that the Angrezi all had to one extent or another (and she’d definitely been spending too much time with Daniel if she’d consciously noted that). It was almost – she frowned. She had heard that accent before, but not here. It was a slightly nasal New England accent and that was something that was out of place here.

Peering around she saw an unfamiliar face as well – Colonel Harry Maybourne. Fortunately, Maybourne wasn’t going to report having seen her – he was on the ground, eyes closed and from the look of him had probably been hit by a Zat gun or one of the Angrezi stunners. Much like the one that other man she could see was pointing down Daniel’s ear.

“I’ve shot him once!” the man shouted, thankfully not looking in Sam’s direction. “I’ll shoot him again!” Sure enough Daniel was hanging limp from the other man’s grasp. Behind them she could see the gunship canted wildly on one side. It looked like it was missing most of one wing and the mess that a tree had made of the cockpit made it clear that the pilot wouldn’t be making any more wild swerves at von Pinn’s expense.

None of the rest of SG-1 were in view but a moment later, she heard Jack shouting from further down the slope: “Give it up, you idiot! You’re surrounded and we’ve already got half your buddies tied up down here.” Damn, looked like she’d missed quite a bit lying behind the boulder.

“I want one of those choppers, with all my team on it,” the New Englander shouted back. “Or Doctor Jackson’s going home in a coffin! You know what a second zat shot’ll do to him!”

Sam frowned. There was something wrong with what he’d just said, but she couldn’t work it out. Unfortunately, her own weapon had gone flying when she did, which left her without any particular means of intervening. Not that she’d want to make a shot left-handed with Daniel so close to the man – too easy to hit him and even a glancing shot would ki-

Or would it?

“I can’t do that, soldier,” Jack shouted up the hill. “I’m not in command here, and these guys know you killed their pals. I don’t have a whole lot to bargain with here.”

“Screw you, O’Neill!” the man shouted. “Find a way or your friend dies!”

Sam squinted. The weapon that the man was menacing Daniel with was the same type as those that SG-1 had been equipped with. For that matter, it was entirely possible that it was one of those weapons – she’d lost hers and Daniel might well have as well. The lever on the side was – no, the angle was bad. Not up, she’d be able to see that for now. Up was safe. One of the two down positions. One of them killed with one shot, the other stunned no matter how often you were hit. That’s what von Pinn had said, anyway. She really hoped that he’d been telling the truth about that.

Jack sounded defeated, but she knew him well enough to know that he was acting. “I’m doing my best, dammit,” he shouted. “Give me some time.”

“Alright,” the soldier agreed. “ But if I don’t hear from you in five minutes...”

“I get the picture,” Jack called back.

Sam rolled over and wormed back behind the outcropping. There had to be something she could do. Maybourne absolutely must not be allowed to get away with this sort of crap. The question was, what could she do? She had her pack, but no weapons and if the man was using the lethal setting then one shot would be –

She paused. Daniel had already been shot once, the man had said. If that was so and he’d used the lethal setting then he’d have killed him already. But if he was using a stun setting then Daniel was hopefully in no actual danger. In which case, there probably wasn’t any actual greater risk in having the Angrezi attack. If she could only tell Jack that the man didn’t have an actual Zat gun, but a stunner.

After a moment’s thought she started to root through the pockets of her BDUs. What was it Nekhrun had said about chewing gum?


	4. Chapter Three

“Colonel,” one of the Angrezi said softly, not taking his eyes off the slope above the positions that Rao had dropped his command section into to succour the survivors of the two gunships brought down by anti-aircraft fire. “Some one is signalling us with a mirror.”

“Is it Maharta?” Rao asked, turning away from Jack and von Pinn.

“No sir, too close to the enemy and I can’t make out the signals.”

“Where are they coming from?” Jack asked, edging closer.

The soldier hesitated and looked back at Rao, who nodded, before replying: “Behind the outcropping masking the left side of the enemy positions.”

Jack scanned the out-cropping and his eyes narrowed as he saw the light reflecting off something metallic. “Morse code,” he said. “It must be Carter. Does anyone have a something reflective?”

The soldier pulled a small signalling mirror from one of his flak vest pockets and slapped it into Jack’s hand.

“Please – say – again – O’Neill – over,” Jack muttered to himself as he tilted the mirror back and forth, displaying short and long flashes of light to Carter’s position. Her own signals halted for a moment while Jack signalled and then resumed.

“Two – enemy – sighted,” he translated. “Daniel – hostage. Maybourne - unconscious. Enemy - armed – with – stunner – repeat – stunner – not – zat. Carter – over.”

“Good,” Rao rumbled. “We’ve accounted for them all then,” he concluded, glancing down the slope at where the captured members of Maybourne’s team were being guarded. There had only been three micro-lights and none of them could have carried more than two men. Four were now prisoners so Maybourne and the active soldier were the last.

“Confirm - your - condition,” Jack signalled. He watched the light that came back for a minute or so. “She’s unarmed and she’s broken her arm,” he advised them.

“Tell her to keep her head down then,” Rao grunted. He gestured sharply towards one of the grounded gunships and the pilot saluted before closing the canopy.

“What are you doing?” Jack asked.

“We’re going to rush them, Colonel,” von Pinn explained, hefting his own weapon.

“But Danny -”

“If he only has a stunner then the only way he could inflict any serious damage on Doctor Jackson would be by hitting him over the head with it,” von Pinn interrupted. “And we’d rather take him down before he realises it and gets himself another weapon. Some of the stolen gear is more lethal – and we know that they are carrying chemical-propellant slug throwers like yours as well. Besides, we’re getting near to his deadline.”

Jack hesitated and then nodded, taking his own stunner out and flicking the selector switch to stun.

“Time’s up, O’Neill!” came a shout from above them.

Rao slashed his hand downwards and two dozen turbaned men hurled themselves up the steep slope, weapons ready. Behind them, the gunship spooled its turbines up suddenly, the sudden roar deafening to Jack as he half ran and half climbed the hill, von Pinn only a half-step behind him. Even Rao’s impressive lead was not sufficient however to beat the gunship to the wreck of its comrade as it leapt vertically into the air and then glided forwards, blue bolts spitting from the guns on either side of the cockpit.

By the time Jack got to the top, it was all over – Daniel and his captor were both sprawled on the ground next to Maybourne and Carter was peeking warily over the outcropping that she’d tumbled across when they abandoned their gunship.

“Are you okay, Carter?” Jack asked, lowering his gun, still unfired.

“Just peachy, sir,” she answered, glancing over at Daniel. “Is Teal’c with you?”

“He went up the hill with one of Rao’s squads,” Jack explained. “We figured he could cut them off if they made a run for it, or outflank them if they didn’t.” He helped her to her feet and they both pushed through the crowd of soldiers surrounding the three fallen Tau’ri. “Is Daniel okay?”

“Your Brahmin is sleeping peacefully,” Rao snorted, gesturing to where Daniel lay on his back – breathing easily, Jack saw and presumably unaware of the drama of the last few minutes. “More than I can say for my pilot,” he added and gestured towards the wrecked gunship.

“Or for the men at the armoury,” Jack noted. “Harry’s really gotten his ass in a crack this time.”

“You know this one?” Rao asked, pointing at Daniel’s captor.

Jack shook his head. “He must be one of Maybourne’s NID agents. This, on the other hand, is Colonel Harry Maybourne. He’s been a major pain in the ass before.”

Rao grunted and used one boot to flip the unconscious Maybourne onto his back. “Very well then. Since he seems to have been the leader of this little mission of mayhem, Lieutenant von Pinn, I am hereby handing him over to the Confederated Free Systems Fleet as a menace to our security. Do you accept the responsibility of dealing with this troublemaker?”

Von Pinn saluted and clicked his heels. “Sir, on behalf of myself and of my Admiral, I accept this responsibility.”

“Then do me the kindness of taking him away from my planet,” the Colonel demanded. “And take these three and their Jaffa with you. If nothing else, I’m short of gunships to haul them back to the coast.”

“Of course, sir,” von Pinn agreed with another salute and stepped back. “Colonel, Captain, if we can return briefly to the Leonidas then the rest of your equipment will be restored to you and you will be free to use the Stargate.”

“Yeah,” Jack agreed. He lifted Daniel into a fireman’s carry and glanced at Maybourne. “Do you want any help with him?”

“That won’t be necessary,” von Pinn assured him and pulled a small device about the size of a cellphone out of his pocket, holding it to his ear as it chirped. “Thank you, sublieutenant. Please send down two men to assist, and have a medic ready on our arrival. Captain Carter has a broken arm and Doctor Jackson has been stunned.”

Teal’c arrived in time to see a ring device deposit two of von Pinn’s soldiers, who efficiently secured Maybourne and hauled him to where they had appeared, followed by von Pinn and SG-1. The last thing they saw of the hillside before the rings appeared around them was a squad of soldiers hauling Daniel’s erstwhile captor down the slope towards the other captives.

“What do you think Nekhrun will do with Maybourne?” Sam asked von Pinn.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” the infantry officer said. “I don’t think he’d look very pretty on top of a winter festival tree.”

.oOo.

The ramp was surrounded by marines when Jack led the team back through the Stargate. “Welcome back, SG-1,” General Hammond’s voice declared through the tannoy. “What kept you?”

“…it’s a long story,” Jack called back. “Carter’s got a broken arm, Danny got zatted and we got invited to a diplomatic reception.”

He could see Hammond staring down at him from the control room. “Report to the infirmary,” he ordered. “There will be a full debriefing at fifteen hundred hours.”

Jack sighed. “It’s good to be home.” He looked at Daniel. “It’s better to not be the one who’s going to have Janet shining a bright light in their eyes.”

“I think you’re better get a full examination too, Jack,” Daniel warned him. “Von Pinn zatted all of us when we got caught, remember.”

“Aw, no…” Jack whined. “That was ages ago, Danny. I’m fine…”

.oOo.

George Hammond wondered if he’d cause himself any serious injury if he mixed the indigestion tablets in the top left drawer of his desk with the whiskey in the bottom right drawer. It wasn’t as if there wasn’t a fully equipped infirmary on base. Then he remembered who would be responsible for his base if he was on medical leave and decided against experimentation.

“So instead of just examining some abandoned ruins, you discovered an industrialised world with military technology thirty years or so in advance of ours, who are on the verge of signing a treaty with a previously unknown Goa’uld warlord and helped them apprehend an NID team that had broken into one of their arsenals and was on its way back to Earth with a selection of their small arms?” he asked.

“Uh, yes sir, that’s about the size of it,” Jack admitted. “We got an invitation to go back in a week or so to attend the big diplomatic party when the Angrezi sign their treaty with Nekhrun though, so it’s possible that we can get some of their technology legitimately this time.”

“Well at least that’s something,” Hammond agreed. “You specifically, or should I send a diplomatic team?”

“Us personally,” Jack confirmed, “Although if we can arrange a later meeting then it shouldn’t be a problem to have a diplomatic team take over.”

“Good, at least something can be salvaged from this,” Hammond agreed. “I’ll see what I can find out about the NID using the Stargate we recovered from Antarctica – it shouldn’t be too difficult to trace.”

“Just as long as no one expects us to get Maybourne back,” Jack muttered. “Good riddance.”

“ColonelMaybourne would be a valuable source of information for Nekhrun,” Teal’c pointed out. “He has already made it clear that he has an interest in the Earth.”

“How much of a threat do you think he poses?” Hammond asked seriously.

“That would depend if he has the Confederacy backing him up,” Jack admitted. “He’s got at least six fairly large warships with him over Angrezi so if he turns up here with the same force then we’d have trouble even slowing him down.”

“So our only hope is that he doesn’t find out,” Hammond concluded. “Which means recovering Maybourne and his team at any cost.”

“Just what I always wanted to do,” Jack grumbled. “Get Harry out of one of his messes.”

“In the meantime, Captain Carter, contact the Tok’ra. It’s possible that they will have more information,” Hammond ordered. “If Nekhrun is as powerful as you’ve reported then it might be easier to bargain with him for Maybourne than to attempt a rescue.”

“That might be an interesting conversation,” Daniel noted. “Nekhrun doesn’t seem like he’s particularly fond of the Tok’ra.”

“It will be interesting to hear their opinion of him,” Teal’c agreed.

.oOo.

“That gangrenous sore on the hindquarters of a syphilitic she-goat lives!?” Anise shrieked. “Damn her! What does it take to get rid of her!?” Even Jacob Carter seemed surprised by her vehemence.

“You’ve, uh, heard of Nekhrun then?” Jack asked sweetly.

“Heard of her?” she spat. “I thought I’d killed the backstabbing weasel-faced bitch a thousand years ago!”

Sam frowned. “Her? The Nekhrun we met was male – oh.”

“Oh?” Jack asked. “What do you mean, ‘oh’?”

“Nekhrun’s current host was male, but von Pinn said that his usual host was female,” Sam reminded him. “I take it that Nekhrun often takes female hosts?”

“Von Pinn?” her father asked, eyeing Sam thoughtfully. “Who was this ‘von Pinn’?”

“Dad, can we focus on the real issue here?”

“I think this is an issue, Sam,” the elder Carter declared. “How was this von Pinn character so familiar with Nekhrun?”

“Nekhrun’s apparently part of some outfit called the Confederated Free Systems,” Jack explained. “Andre von Pinn’s an officer in their fleet, he was the guy that got stuck escorting us around while we were there.”

“Confederated Free Systems,” Jacob mused. “Hmm. And yes,” he confirmed, eyes lighting up as Selmak took over to address the question, “Nekhrun mostly used female hosts ever since she and Ra parted ways. As Anise pointed out though, we’ve not had any confirmed sightings of her for most of a thousand years. We were fairly sure she died when the Tel’tak she was aboard was destroyed – we’d leaked information on her movements to Nirriti and she told Ra.”

“You set Nekhrun up?” Daniel asked. “No wonder he – she – wasn’t very happy with you.”

Anise snorted. “She never hesitated to share information on the Tok’ra with the other system lords. We lost at least a dozen bases because she ferreted them out, then swooped in after we were gone to enslave the populations who had supported us. No one ever saw those populations again. And I’ve lost count of how many of our agents she’s identified just when they were getting close to the System Lords.”

“You said she and Ra parted ways,” Jack asked. “How come? Too treacherous for him to stomach?”

“It was a long time ago,” Selmak replied. “Back before Egeria’s time in fact. From what I was told, Nekhrun was Ra’s chief warlord in the conquest of Earth. But they quarrelled about two thousand years later and Ra declared that Nekhrun was a renegade and was going to have her executed. Instead, Nekhrun escaped. Egeria tried to recruit her when she was founding the Tok’ra, but she laughed in our faces.”

“You’re painting a disturbing picture of Nekhrun,” Hammond noted. “How much of a threat do you think she would pose to the Earth?”

Selmak shrugged. “There’s no way to know, Nekhrun’s notoriously unpredictable. We’ll see what we can find out for you though.” He looked around for a moment. “You won’t be opening the Stargate for another hour, right?”

Hammond nodded.

“In that case, maybe you can tell us a little more about what she’s up to these days. The idea of Nekhrun with a fleet isn’t one that anyone is going to be happy about.”

.oOo.

“General Hammond,” Hammond replied into the handset red phone on his desk.

“General,” came the familiar voice of the Commander-in-Chief. “I’ve got Senator Kinsey in my office complaining about the SGC actively interfering in an NID operation that would have netted us a new generation of small arms. Do you know anything about that?”

Hammond cleared his throat. “It’s possible he’s referring to a recent incident where SG-1 narrowly managed to prevent the NID from starting a war between the United States of America and an interstellar confederation that could have a fleet of starships in orbit over the Earth in a matter of weeks. SG-1 will be returning on Tuesday to try to open formal diplomatic contact which could lead to us being able to purchase large numbers of those small arms, as well as a number of other technologies with military applications.”

There was a pause. “That bad?”

“Sir, a squad of NID agents under the command of Colonel Maybourne was apprehended after attacking an Angrezi armoury and making off with a handful of small arms and heavy weapons. They killed half a dozen Angrezi soldiers without any provocation at all and right now, SG-1’s assistance is the only thing that gives us any goodwill at all from them.”

“Hold on a moment, General,” the Commander-in-Chief sighed.

Hammond rolled a pencil back and forth for a moment and then went back to reading the supply requests he’d been evaluating before the call, holding the handset loosely from his ears. The White House didn’t have very good hold music, he noted.

“It would seem, General,” the most powerful man on Earth said, recommencing the conversation without preamble, “That this was not how the matter was presented to Senator Kinsey. He has apologised for the misunderstanding, it would seem that communication between the SGC and the NID is still not proceeding smoothly?”

“That is quite correct sir, I was not advised that the NID would be running its own Stargate programme or executing foreign policy outside the guidelines that the SGC has been operating under.”

There was another pause. “You make your point, General. I’ll take the matter from here so that you can concentrate on the diplomatic situation with the Angrezi. Please see if you can arrange for Colonel Maybourne’s people to be repatriated to us – they may be hamfisted idiots but they’re our hamfisted idiots – but do not risk the talks on it.”

“Understood sir,” Hammond said.

“Good luck George,” the President said “With Colonel O’Neill on a diplomatic mission, I have a feeling that you’ll need it.” He ended the call before Hammond could respond – not that the general planned to disagree, he’d bought a large bottle of antacids in preparation for whatever report SG-1 brought back from their next visit to Angrezi.

.oOo.

“Sounds like Kinsey’s gotten his ass in a crack,” Jack commented when Hammond mentioned the call to SG-1 during the pre-mission briefing. There really wasn’t much to brief the four of them on – they had all seen more of Angrezi than anyone else - so mostly they had reviewed the mission goals of persuading the Angrezi to let them send a diplomatic team to look into opportunities for trade and if possible to obtain Maybourne’s team.

“No doubt he will extricate himself with his usual ease,” Teal’c pointed out solemnly.

“I’m not so sure, Teal’c,” Sam disagreed. “Maybourne came within an inch of providing the Angrezi with a casus belli against Earth, and with them joining the Confederacy we can’t be sure that Nekhrun wouldn’t have backed them. That would have been an absolute disaster.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that Kinsey will have any trouble producing plenty of ‘evidence’ that he didn’t know anything about it,” said Jack. “What do you think, Daniel.”

“Hmm?” Daniel said, looking up from his own notes. “What was that?”

Hammond frowned. “Doctor Jackson could you please at least try to pay attention?”

“Ah - sorry,” he replied in a distracted voice. “I was just thinking about the Angrezi. Nekhrun said that the ruins that we were looking at used to be his villa, right?”

“Yeah,” Jack agreed.

“So he’s probably known about the Angrezi since long before the Confederacy existed – in fact he’s probably the one who took them there. And Anise said that he collected groups who had supported the Tok’ra when they were abandoned by the Tok’ra – remember what he said about the Tok’ra sacrificing the people who sheltered them?”

Sam frowned. “I don’t see where you’re going,” she admitted. “Do you mean that the Angrezi could be descended from groups like that?”

“I’m saying that the entire Confederacy could be made up of worlds descended from societies that he brought from elsewhere and had been manipulating from behind the scenes,” Daniel explained. “Remember, he’s thousands of years old – there could be hundreds of worlds that he’s steering towards technological development. He says that he’s not in charge of the Confederacy, but it’s pretty clear that he’s got a lot of strings attached to it.”

“Well there’s one way to find out,” Jack told him, rising from his seat.

“What method do you propose, O’Neill?” Teal’c asked, following Jack’s example.

“We’re expected to attend this reception thing as his guests,” Jack said. “So why don’t we just ask him? It’s not as if he’s at all ashamed of what he’s been doing, there’s a fair chance he’ll be happy for the chance to brag about it.”

.oOo.

This time when they stepped through the Stargate onto Angrezi, the hollow was not empty. When they had left they had seen Confederate soldiers dismantling a small base camp that they had used for their simulated invasion of the Angrezi. Now, although the tents were all gone, two lines of soldiers flanked the ancient road – on the left turbaned Angrezi soldiers wearing scarlet tunics and black pants and on the right a rank of bareheaded soldiers wearing black tunics and pants broken only by grey collars and cuffs. Both ranks of soldiers came to attention as SG-1 stepped down from the Stargate.

“Colonel O’Neill, Captain Carter, Doctor Jackson, Teal’c,” called von Pinn, who was standing at the far end of the little corridor of soldiers, wearing the same black uniform as the men to their right, although in his case he also had grey russian-style shoulderboards and facings on his tunic. “On behalf of Admiral Sario Ayodhya of the Confederated Free Systems Fleet, Ambassador Lord Nekhrun of the Confederated Free Systems and his imperial majesty Padishah Alexander VIII of Angrezi, I welcome you to Angrezi.”

Jack paused. “I feel distinctly underdressed,” he whispered to Sam, who was standing next to him in the same BDUs that the rest of SG-1 were wearing, their formal clothes all packed into their backpacks.

“You’re dawdling, sir,” she hissed back as they walked towards von Pinn. The soldiers all saluted as SG-1 passed them and the two Air Force officers reflexively returned the salutes.

“Thanks for the warm welcome,” Jack greeted von Pinn.

“You’re entirely welcome, Colonel,” von Pinn replied. “How often do you think we can bandy the word ‘welcome’ back and forth?” he asked under his breath as they shook hands.

“Long enough to avoid the reception?” Jack asked hopefully.

“Sadly not.” Von Pinn turned and gestured to the open space behind them. “If you’ll step this way please, we’ll ring up to the Leonidas where quarters have been provided for you and you can prepare for the reception. There’s also a briefing for the protocol that will be in place – I know that it’s tempting to make sure you’re rested before having to endure something like this, but please try not to fall asleep. If you start anything too messy then it would reflect poorly upon the Confederacy.”

.oOo.

The Leonidas was much as Jack remembered it – clean, polished and professional. This time they were escorted to a suite of rooms deeper inside the ship. There were a pair of guards outside the doors, wearing the same uniform that Jack remembered and looking rather drab alongside von Pinn’s new outfit.

“What’s with the black and silver?” Jack asked. “Dress uniform?”

“Dress blacks,” von Pinn agreed. “The shoulder-boards are for officers, facings like these mark a command grade officer – a Lieutenant or a Captain - and when the facings and epaulettes are merged into a single shoulder piece then you’re faced with one of the admiralty. The fancier the markings, the more senior the officer.”

“Sounds like the Admiral will be carrying around a lot of brass,” Jack observed.

Von Pinn laughed. “It’s even worse than that. This is about as formal as it gets so we’ll be wearing a sash to display our decorations as well and he has to wear Nekhrun’s as well. He may have to bring a valet along to carry all of them.”

Jack shivered. “I’ve never been so grateful for mess dress uniforms in my life.”

“It’s not as if we have to wear them all that often,” von Pinn shrugged.

“We’ve been asked to find out what’s going to happen to Colonel Maybourne,” Daniel asked as he came back from looking around the suite. “Is that going to be a problem?”

“I don’t think anything’s been decided yet,” von Pinn told him. “Until it is, he’s just been locked up. Lord Nekhrun said something about holding him hostage against having a Tau’ri named,” he hesitated. “What was the name. Geord Luke As, I think, account for certain inconsistencies in his video entertainment -”

“We will defend Georgelucas with our lives,” Teal’c declared boldly.

“- but I think he was joking,” von Pinn said, giving Teal’c a puzzled look. “Or not?”

“Probably joking,” Jack snorted. “Although that’s a shame, come to think of it. I’ve got a few questions for him myself...”

Teal’c shook his head. “There is no doubt, O’Neill, that Greedo shot first.”

“Seriously, I don’t know what’s going to happen to Maybourne,” von Pinn interrupted, proving that even halfway across the galaxy, everyone was fed up with that particular question. “If you’re trying to get him back – and I can’t honestly see why you’d want him – then it’s pretty much going to depend on whether you can keep him locked away from carrying out any more operations like this one.”

Jack winced. Maybourne was a slippery character and keeping him locked up would be a great deal easier said than done. “I suppose we’ll have to see what can be worked out,” he replied.

.oOo.

SG-1 had been offered front row seats at the briefing, with at least six rows of seats behind them filling up with men and women in a considerable variety of what Daniel assured Jack was formal garb. Jack and Sam both wore mess-dress, Daniel wore a black tuxedo and Teal’c had donned his carefully maintained Jaffa gear, looking every bit the First Prime of Apophis that he had been before they met on Chulak. On the other side of the aisle, however, the men and women all wore Confederacy dress blacks, more than half of them with bright silk sashes of royal blue or crimson descending from their left shoulders to their right hips and with very few exceptions wearing officers shoulderboards. The few who did not were evidently long service non-commissioned officers with red sashes liberally laden with decorations in comparison to the scantier selections of their officers.

There were only a few seats still empty when the doors slid open to admit Admiral Ayodhya who didn’t so much stalk in as sidle towards a seat immediately across from Jack. There was something oddly furtive to him and the blue sash he wore, while impressively bemedalled, didn’t seem to live up to von Pinn’s description.

“Probably the most important thing to remember,” the civilian giving the briefing concluded, “Is not to address anyone on the uppermost level of the throne room unless they address you first and not to step onto it without an explicit verbal invitation by someone already standing on it. Stop and ask their permission first if you have to. Admiral Ayodhya assures me that he won’t let the Padishah cut your nose off if you do, but it would cause needless offence.”

“Did the Admiral promise that he wouldn’t cut our noses off if we do?” asked some wag from the back of the civilian seats.

The briefer, who Jack had noted wore a red sash of the same kind that so many of the officers did, tapped his papers against the desk before closing them up in his folder. “No, Herr von Strang. He did not.” There was an uneasy pause. “Are there any further questions?”

“Will Lord Nekhrun still be attending with Admiral Ayodhya?” asked another voice, this one recognisably Andre von Pinn.

The Admiral rose to his feet and turned to face the audience, eyes glowing. “That is my intention, Lieutenant von Pinn. Is there any reason for your enquiry?”

“I was just wondering why you weren’t wearing your decorations, Lord Nekhrun,” von Pinn replied politely. “I apologise for any discourtesy that I may have offered you.”

Nekhrun’s eyes narrowed. “I appear to have accidentally left them behind when I came aboard, Lieutenant,” he advised. “More precisely, I was in such a hurry to board the Leonidas that I forgot to collect them from my vault back on Heinessen. I am sure that the Padishah will not feel their lack.”

At that moment the door to the briefing room hissed open and a tiny middle-aged woman of obviously Indian heritage trotted in, clutching a garment of red and blue silk. “Ah, Lord Nekhrun,” she said brightly. “I hope I’m not disturbing you at all.”

“Ah… no,” Nekhrun said resignedly.

“Oh good,” the woman said, her smile displaying brilliant white teeth. “I’ve found the rest of your uniform, it must have fallen at the back of the closet and ended up in one of your shoe boxes somehow.”

“Imagine that,” agreed Nekhrun, his voice somewhat strained. He obediently turned around and then sank to his knees so that the much smaller woman could slip the garment, some sort of sleeveless jacket, over his broad shoulders. The look on his face, Sam noted, was almost identical to that on Jack’s on the not infrequent occasions when he was being dragged to the infirmary by Janet Fraiser. Then the light faded out and in a somewhat amused voice, Admiral Ayodhya continued: “And let that be a lesson to all of you, that even the greatest warlord can be defeated by those who know him best.”

“You’re a flatterer, young man,” the woman said with a slight gleam in her eyes that spoke of amusement. “I’ll have you know that I’ve learnt a few things carrying my Lord Nekhrun around all these years.”

That statement seized SG-1’s attention sharply. Nekhrun’s usual host was… von Pinn had told them that Nekhrun’s usual ‘host is a very sweet lady who’s been with him for a couple of generations’ but it hadn’t occurred to them that she would be visibly aged – most Goa’uld utilised a sarcophagus to keep their hosts looking young and attractive.

“Ah, how many years was that, if you don’t mind my asking?” Daniel asked cautiously.

“Not quite eighty years,” she told him. “My, you must be the Doctor Jackson that I have heard so much about. Doesn’t seem that they feed you very well, wherever it is that you come from – you’re all skin and bones.”

.oOo.

In the end it took heroic measures and promises to return to the Leonidas after the reception for a ‘proper meal’ to extract Daniel from the clutches of Nekhrun’s host Harjit.

“You actually share headspace with her?” Jack asked incredulously as they descended the stairs to the deck with the Ring transporters.

Nekhrun shrugged, the gesture sending all of the many medals hanging from his vest jangling rather less than melodiously. “Her family’s been working for me for almost a thousand years, Colonel. Now her grandmother, she was a real tyrant. They keep me grounded.”

“They’ve got you whipped,” jeered Jack.

“That is not part of the arrangement,” Nekhrun retorted. His eyes grew distant. “Although her great-grandmother did have a certain fondness for that sort of thing. Disturbing woman, I had to insist on moving to Harjit’s grandmother once she was old enough – it was getting seriously difficult to keep the stable hands in my employee. Something about tight riding pants, I think she said.”

Jack paled slightly and Sam snickered.

“You mean you actually…” he spluttered.

“Ah, now that is part of the deal,” Ayodhya explained, the Goa’uld fading into the back of the Admiral’s awareness. Probably to feel all warm and cuddly about the look on the Tau’ri Colonel’s face. “Whoever Nekhrun’s host is, while he’s in, is the lord of the manor, so to speak, with all the perquisites thereof.” He paused and frowned. “Actually… I’m distantly related to Lady Harjit. Her great-grandmother would be my, hmm…” His eyes glowed for a brief moment. “Great-great-great-grandmother.” The glow faded and he winced. “By one of those stable hands it would seem. Wonderful, the things you can learn, hosting Lord Nekhrun for a month or two, they told me. Hah.”

“So you come from the same planet as her?” Daniel asked

“Well, I was born on Heinessen,” Ayodhya corrected. “My grandfather settled down there after what I’m assured was an exciting and colourful career in the diplomatic service, but he came from Uttara Mahanandai on Basantapur.”

Daniel nodded. “And Basantapur is where Harjit comes from?”

“Her family have served Lord Nekhrun in the Mahanandai since our ancestors first came to Basantapur,” Ayodhya agreed. “Admittedly, without most of us knowing about it until a few generations ago. It was quite a shock to some of the higher caste families to find out that Lord Nekhrun’s representatives were of the Shudra.”

“What’s a Shudra?” Jack asked.

“Jack!” Daniel protested. “Didn’t you listen to a word of the briefing?”

“Some of them, yeah.”

“Other than, ‘there will not be refreshments’?”

“Well…”

Daniel started swearing in several languages that he was fairly sure Jack didn’t know, although he’d been caught off guard once on that matter. When he paused for breathe, Nekhrun filled in for him with great eloquence although he was a little lacking in the vehemence. “Jack, traditional Hindi culture divides the population into four castes. The Shudra are the lowest of the castes, the workers. When we’re in the Padishah’s throne room they’ll only be allowed onto the lowest of the levels of his throne room except when they are specifically escorted further up. From what I gather, Nekhrun is accorded extremely high social status in the Confederacy, so for him to be represented on Basantapur by a member of the Shudra would be a huge slap in the face.”

“The official stance is that whoever his host is takes on his own status,” Ayodhya explained, “but it’s taken years for the unofficial stance to catch up with that.” He shrugged. “Not that anyone else in the Confederacy, except possibly the Angrezi now, cares about Basantapur’s caste system as long as they don’t try to impose it on the rest of us.” He opened a door, revealing a ring transporter. “Alright, brace yourselves for the uppermost of Angrezi’s upper crust.”

“Why did you have to invite us again?” Jack almost whined.

“Misery enjoys company?” Ayodhya suggested with a smile.

.oOo.

Angrezi high society was apparently largely focused on standing around talking, Jack noted. At least nobody was expecting him to dance. The throne room was almost large enough a football game, although the low steps separating the four levels would have been a formidable hazard to anyone running around. The Padishah was enthroned on the Lion Throne, a Goa’uld-worthy creation of elaborately worked gold and crimson velvets that stood just before the step up to the highest level of the huge chamber. Apparently, even though he was the ruler of the planet, the Padishah wasn’t of the highest caste and couldn’t go further back without permission. It didn’t make much sense to Jack, but Sam had mentioned that if it meant that the Padishah was bound by laws rather than being an absolute ruler then it was probably a good sign.

Which still left Jack drifting around the level since he didn’t think that walking up to the Grand High Poobah of the entire planet and saying ‘Hi, can I have a trade agreement and those dudes who shot up your soldiers please?’ would make quite the impression that General Hammond would want.

“You’re looking rather bored,” said an amused voice as he was studying one of the huge oil paintings that were spaced along the walls of the throne room. He turned to see a young woman in a sari examining him somewhat sceptically. “I do hope not, daddy would hate to feel that he was being a poor host.”

“Daddy?” Jack asked, hoping that this wasn’t going to be some elaborately stage-managed ploy to make it look like he was hitting on a girl at least a decade and a half his junior. Maybe two decades.

“Ah,” she said. “Of course, we haven’t had the chance to be introduced yet, have we. You have the inestimatable pleasure to be addressing her Royal and Imperial Highness, the Princess Shakuntala of Angrezi. And who might you be? I’m sure that that isn’t a Confederate uniform, dashing though it is.”

Jack blinked. Great, an princess at least a decade and a half his junior. “Colonel Jack O’Neill of the United States Air Force. From Earth.”

“Oh good,” the Princess said brightly. “I was hoping that that was who you were. I wasn’t sure though, you don’t look old enough to be Doctor Jackson’s father -”

“I’m not Daniel’s father,” Jack said quickly. Blast it! Did everyone in the galaxy think that that was their relationship? “It’s just a coincidence about our names.” Before there could be an awkward silence, or more embarrassing, a continuation of that topic of conversation, he changed it: “Is it really an inestimatable pleasure to be addressing you?”

She laughed, not a girlish giggle but the chuckle of someone who was glad to have a break in the formality. “I’m assured that it is by ever such a large number of young fellows, Colonel. However, perhaps you’ll have drawn your own conclusion by the end of the evening. What brings you back to Angrezi? I would have thought that you would want my father’s memories of the Colonel Mayburn’s exploits to have time to cool before showing your faces to him again.”

“Well there’s an Earth saying about striking while the iron is hot,” Jack said. “If we just went away then your father’s opinion of us would be based on Colonel Maybourne and perhaps we can make a better impression on him than that.”

“Audacious,” the princess agreed. “And I suppose that Admiral Ayodhya was very persuasive about his invitation? I do wonder why he did that.”

“I suppose that it was Nekhrun’s idea,” suggest Jack. “Although that rather begs what his agenda is.”

She smiled again, as if in amusement. “I’m always puzzled that anyone would think of Nekhrun as male. I suppose you’ve only met her while Admiral Ayodhya was her host but she’s really far more feminine when Lady Harjit hosts her. She was a very merry host when I visited Basantapur last year.”

“As far as I know, snakes are all male except the Queens,” Jack shrugged.

“Snakes?” the princess froze and then shook her head. “I really must ask you not to refer to Goa’uld as that, Colonel. Snakes, after all, are quite magnificent creatures and hardly deserve comparison to dear Nekhrun’s depraved cousins.”

“Do you mind if I call them worms instead?” Jack asked quickly.

Shakuntala considered that for a moment and then banished the frown from her face. “Worms seems quite appropriate for them, Colonel. I don’t believe that anyone would be offended by that name for the Goa’uld.” She paused and her eyes gleamed. “Except the Goa’uld of course.”

“That’s a shame,” Jack said, his voice dripping with insincerity and they both laughed. “Perhaps we’d better not tell them. Might rupture their delicate egos.”

She chuckled again. “On second thoughts, perhaps we should. So, Colonel, why does making a good impression on my father matter to you? Everyone here has things that they want, what are yours?”

“It’s hardly a secret,” Jack said. “We’re hoping to get permission for a few diplomats to come through, maybe buy some of your military hardware – we’ve been lucky so far with the Goa’uld, but I’d rather rely on having more big guns than they do. And - very delicately – we’re supposed to see if we can get Maybourne and his crew of idiots back. We’d really like to know who authorised them to go off like that.”

“My,” Shakuntala said brightly. “I said that you were audacious, but perhaps I understated it. You want to reclaim men who shot up Daddy’s soldiers? That’s very bold, colonel.”

Jack grimaced. “I always get given interesting jobs like this.”


	5. Chapter Four

“It looks like the Colonel is having an interesting conversation,” Ayodhya observed to Teal’c as they watched the throne room from the other side of the third level. None of the Angrezi seemed particularly keen on approaching the towering Jaffa and the Admiral was blatantly taking advantage of this to keep the female members of the Kshatriya caste from launching their matrimonial assaults upon him, forcing them to resort to siege work.

“Is the young woman known to you?” Teal’c asked with a raised eyebrow.

Nekhrun took over the conversation. “She’s the Padishah’s second daughter,” he explained. “And probably about as determined to avoid her suitors as my host, wouldn’t you say, Sario?”

“Thanks,” Ayodhya said, taking over again. “In any event, she’s fills the role of back channel to his Royal and Imperial Majesty. What she hears, her father does too. If Jack makes a good impression here then it’ll count for quite a lot.”

Teal’c frowned. “Why are you concerned by this?”

“Nekhrun’s insidious plans, you mean?” the Admiral asked. “Nothing terribly sinister. He’s just thinking long term. After all, even if the System Lords were defeated tomorrow, we’d still be in the same galaxy and have to deal with each other. And it might take a while for the Angrezi to find their feet in the Confederacy – letting them act as intermediaries to the Tau’ri would probably cushion some of the shocks that they’ll feel. Nekhrun rarely does things for only -” A small device on his belt chirped and he looked down. “- one reason. Excuse me, I have a call.”

Turning abruptly he hurried towards a side door. Teal’c looked at his back for a moment and then followed the Admiral towards the exit, weaving swiftly through the little knots of conversation. Ayodhya seemed distracted, barely noticing a servant who had to halt abruptly to avoid a collision and yanking open the door to reveal a balcony overlooking one of the palace’s many small gardens. The door swung closed behind him but Teal’c caught it before it could close completely.

“Leonidas, this is Admiral Ayodhya,” he heard. “Where’s the fire?” There was a pause. “I see,” the Admiral said flatly. “No, I understand. Give me fifteen minutes and then issue a recall signal to the rest of my party.”

Teal’c frowned and let the door close the rest of the way, moving aside and following the wall towards the last place he’d seen Sam. Unfortunately, she’d been locked in conversation with several Brahmin and at some point the conversation had moved up onto the uppermost level of the throne room.

Behind him, he heard the door open and medals jingling merrily. When he glanced back he saw Ayodhya marching in a direct line towards the Lion Throne, an intent look on his face.

“Teal’c, are you okay buddy?” Jack asked, breaking away from the wall where he’d been standing. Behind him, the woman Ayodhya had identified as the Padishah’s daughter was listening intently.

“Admiral Ayodhya has received a signal from the Leonidas,” Teal’c reported swiftly. “There appears to be a crisis and he is recalling his people.”

“From a court reception?” the princess asked incredulously. “That’s unheard of!”

“It would have to be one hell of a crisis,” Jack agreed and his eyes were concerned as they met Teal’c’s. “Daniel went up to the next level to talk history with some Brahmin, but I lost sight of Sam a while back.”

“Captain Carter is also on the next level, O’Neill,” Teal’c observed.

“Great – and we’re not supposed to go up there?”

“Not without permission,” Shakuntala confirmed. “It would be highly improper.” She smiled. “Of course, someone who knew the, shall we say, tricks of the trade, can get invited there whenever she wishes. If I could tear myself away from such a handsome pair of gentlemen, of course.”

“I do not believe that that will be necessary,” Teal’c observed, looking over to the Lion Throne, where Ayodhya had reached the Padishah’s side and was whispering quickly.

The Padishah nodded and even at this distance Teal’c could see fear touch the man’s eyes. “My people,” he declared in a strong voice. “We gathered here to celebrate our joining a brotherhood of worlds, one that reaches across the stars. However, it would seem that this brotherhood shall soon be tested.” He smiled, white teeth gleaming beneath his black beard. “And thus I must excuse the absence of my guests and formalise our alliance in a less decorous fashion than I expected.” He held out one hand to Ayodhya, who reached past it to clasp the Padishah’s wrist, a grip that was reciprocated.

“Welcome to the Confederated Free Systems,” the Admiral said loudly.

“It’s an honour to be counted amongst you,” the Padishah replied, just as clearly.

“What’s going on, sir?” Sam asked quietly as she led Daniel down from the next level.

It was Teal’c who answered the question however. “The Goa’uld have come.”

.oOo.

The war room buried deep below the palace didn’t remind Jack particularly of Stargate Command, other than the lack of windows. The actual administrative headquarters of the Padishah’s armies might have been more similar, but the Padishah’s own war room – actually a fairly large complex of bunkers – were lavishly furnished in keeping with his august status.

That didn’t make them any less functional however, and the display table in the middle of the main room was a thing of beauty – a holographic display unit as big as any dinner table that Jack had ever seen, now displaying a three-dimensional image of the island that played host to Angrezi’s Stargate.

“You know what this means?” Jack asked.

“That the Angrezi have advanced holographic technology?” Sam asked.

“And I want to see this thing project a hockey match,” Jack agreed. “However, a little more urgently, the Jaffa have cut us off from the Stargate.”

“Indeed,” Teal’c noted. He indicated an array of red icons spreading out from the location of the Stargate. “These are the Jaffa dispositions?”

“As far as we can tell,” Nekhrun noted. His uniform was looking a little more rumpled than usual and he had both hands thrust into his hip pockets as he eyed the map. “Satellite surveillance isn’t perfect, but the Leonidas was able to isolate the activation signal of the Stargate just about twenty minutes ago. Presumably the Jaffa have been coming through fairly steadily ever since. Initial reports are that before the ground troops, a flight of Death Gliders came through – the transmission suggests that the defenders managed to bring one of them down before they were overrun,” he added with grim pride.

“When you were running a simulated attack,” Jack asked. “Did the Angrezi actually manage to stop it?”

The Goa’uld grimaced. “Not before we reached the limits of the exercise area, no. Of course, they have a better idea of what to expect now.”

“We also began reinforcing the nearest bases,” General Soor added stepping back from the table where he’d been examining the Jaffa positions. “Since we evidently didn’t have the necessary forces on hand before. So more troops, and better prepared ones. We’ll be in position to counterattack at dawn.”

Jack raised his eyebrows. “Teal’c how good are the Jaffa at fighting in the dark?”

“As hindered as anyone else,” Teal’c confirmed. “Are you contemplating the course of action that I am contemplating?”

“A night attack?” Soor asked. He frowned. “Audacious. We have night vision equipment, but the troops are not trained for such an operation.”

“Mine are,” Nekhrun advised him. “Lieutenant von Pinn’s battalion is readying for operations aboard the Leonidas and I can amass another battalion or so from the detachments aboard the rest of my squadron. Even on a small scale, it could be enough to disrupt them.”

Soor frowned. “I’ll think about it,” he said, turning away.

“There’s not really time for that,” Jack muttered, looking at the blue icons of Angrezi forces amassed around coastal strongpoints while the Jaffa crept outwards from the Stargate. “Those Death Gliders will have pinpointed the positions by now and the Jaffa will be launching their own attacks at dawn.”

“Then you must seize the initiative,” Shakuntala said from behind them. She was still wearing a sari, which made her the only person in the room not wearing a uniform. “Whichever System Lord is attacking cannot have extensive knowledge of Angrezi, but their information will increase rapidly. Doubtlessly they expected the Stargate to be easily accessible to our leaders, and are surprised to see no population centres on the island, but if they can secure the island then it will be difficult to land troops to repel them.” She nodded sharply. “I will speak to my father.”

“I believe I see those traits that you mentioned,” Teal’c conceded to Ayodhya as the Princess walked away. He blinked as Jack gave him a disturbed look. “Admiral Ayodhya spoke highly of the Princess’ leadership potential,” he clarified.

“Good,” Jack nodded. “That’s what I was hoping that you meant. Do you think that the grand poobah will listen to her though?”

“The Padishah isn’t stupid,” Nekhrun advised him. “He’s circumscribed by ceremony, but there’s a long tradition of the royal family being employed on his behalf to circumvent the usual government activities. He may not agree with Shakuntala’s opinion – she is fairly young still – but he’ll definitely listen to her.”

“It sounds like you’re extremely familiar with the Angrezi,” Daniel said, remembering Jack’s suggestion for before they left Earth. “How long have you been observing them?”

“Come now, Doctor Jackson,” Nekhrun said with a smirk. “Surely you have realised by now that I settled the Angrezi here in the first place, along with quite a number of others.”

“We thought that it was likely,” Daniel admitted, “But we weren’t entirely sure. So is the entire Confederacy descended from groups of former Tok’ra supporters?”

“Not all of them,” explained Nekhrun. “But quite a lot of them are. I did remove some groups directly from Earth and some of them are just groups that the other Goa’uld forgot about. It can get quite complicated at times…”

“Complicated?” Jack asked. “You’ve been running around moving people back and forth for generations and nobody’s noticed?”

Nekhrun blinked. “Well of course people noticed,” he said. “What do you think the Tok’ra are? Blind? Stupid, I could understand, since they’re still hammering away at the same old plan without having noticed that it isn’t changing anything, but of course they know that I was running off with groups of their supporters. They were pretty upset about it as I recall, even tried betraying me to the Goa’uld a couple of times. I don’t think that they know where I was taking people though, or there would be…” He tailed off.

“Is something wrong?”

“If the Tok’ra knew where I was,” the renegade Goa’uld said slowly, “they’d leak the information to the System Lords within hours and there would be Jaffa swarming all over Angrezi. Gee, I wonder who’s been talking to the Tok’ra lately?”

.oOo.

Shakuntala’s eyes darted between Nekhrun and SG-1 as she approached them again, recognising the sudden suspicion between them. “Father has given his agreement to an immediate counterattack,” she reported. “However, he will not override the existing plans made by General Soor. Instead he suggests that a special task force attack the Stargate directly to cut off the Goa’uld from their reinforcements. Is such a thing feasible?”

“Yes,” Nekhrun agreed, not taking his eyes off SG-1. “The Leonidas can use its ring transporters to deploy my soldiers a short distance from the Stargate. However, even with reinforcements, two battalions might not be enough to secure the Stargate until it has to shut down, not with more Jaffa trying to retake it. Can your father spare more soldiers?”

Shakuntala nodded. “I have been granted permission to detach my own battalion from the Palace Guards to assist you. Also, if the gate can be secured, General Soor will despatch his reserve of jump infantry to support us.”

“Us?” Carter asked. “Are you coming?”

The princess stared the slightly taller air force officer in the eye. “I told you that the battalion being sent was my own, Captain. Where else would I be but with my men?” She turned to look at Nekhrun. “Is that acceptable to you, Admiral?”

“I never doubted it, your highness,” Ayodhya said smoothly, the eyes of the Goa’uld fading back from his face. “If you would be so good as to have your men form up on one of the parade grounds, I will have Leonidas beam you and your men to the Stargate as soon as my own men secure a landing zone. Given your inexperience with night fighting, it would seem wiser to hold you in reserve until then.”

“Of course,” she said pleasantly. “The men will be prepared to depart within the hour, Admiral. On their behalf I thank you for the honour of fighting at your side.”

“Princess,” the Admiral said, bowing deeply. “It is my privilege to lead such men.”

“If you’re going, then so are we,” Jack said firmly.

Ayodhya wheeled on him. “Haven’t you done enough damage!” he hissed and the sheer control that keep the words from being audible more than a few paces made it clear that as far as he was concerned this was not merely a matter of suspicion. The Admiral glanced around, and a muscle in his jaw jumped as he saw Shakuntala listening, wide-eyed. “Damn you for fools!” he continued, concluding the damage done. “Your half-bright bumbling has brought the System Lords down on the Confederacy. Angrezi is one of us now and we will not abandon them. But we are not ready for them. Not yet. And you think I will let you onto the battlefield? Do you think I want every detail of how the Confederacy wages war delivered wholesale to the System Lords by the same sanctimonious hands of the Tok’ra that apparently hold your leash, tokhe straav’!?”

“Admiral,” Shakuntala said quietly. “Is this something that you wish my father to know of?”

He paused and then shook his head. “I have no secrets from my allies,” he said. “However, this is perhaps something that can wait until another time. Gather your troops, your highness. I believe I need to take this conversation with my guests to somewhere more private.” Turning to SG-1: “The four of you are coming with me.”

.oOo.

The Leonidas was a different place when prepared for battle.

Daniel, as a historian, was aware that the great warships of the age of sail had ‘cleared for action’, removing internal bulkheads to leave their gun decks open so that the cannon crew could move freely. The Leonidas was apparently the reverse – every passage had been sealed by solid looking doors that slid almost, but not quite, soundlessly, open ahead of Ayodhya and closed equally automatically behind him.

Almost, but not quite, silent would be a good way to describe Ayodhya as well as he marched through the ship. Trailing in his wake, the rear brought up by a pair of guards that didn’t look quite a soldier-like as those that they had previously seen, SG-1 could only hear the click of his heels as the Admiral walked and incomprehensible mumbling under his breath that even Daniel couldn’t make out.

At last they came to the main deck and Ayodhya paused at a wall, adjusting a control to open the panel that had closed over the windows. Outside, Angrezi floated, surprisingly serene given the turmoil that they had just left. When he turned away, his eyes glowed.

“I am only going to ask this once,” Nekhrun said with exaggerated calm. “Do not lie to me. Did you tell the Tok’ra where they could find me?”

“Yes, but…”

He held up one hand to cut off Sam’s words. “Captain, do you know how many people there are on Angrezi? No? According to their last census,” he said looking out of the window, “there are about a billion and a half of them. That, incidentally, is about average for the Confederacy. There are six other Confederate members. Call it ten billion human beings. Three colonies founded by those members for their growing populations. Over a hundred protectorate worlds with millions of inhabitants in most cases.”

“If the Goa’uld have their way then they will burn the cities and they will salt the fields. They will kill the men, rape the women and enslave our children. And all that stands against this doom that the Tok’ra have written for my people are a fleet of ships that I did not intend to face open battle for at least another century. This, be it in ignorance or in malice, is your gift to me, Tau’ri. And now you propose that I should trust you at my back?” The last sentence delivered in a deep bellow that seemed to shake the compartment shouted.

“My father would not do this,” Sam protested.

“I’m going to regret asking this, I know,” Nekhrun said, still looking out the window, and then asked, “Your father?”

“Uh, Carter’s father is currently the host for a Tok’ra called Selmak,” O’Neill pointed out.

“If that’s a play for sympathy then it’s not going to fly,” Nekhrun said, his face stony. “He’s presumably old enough to know his own mind and if he went along with this then he’s just as bad as the rest of them. Which at best means that he knowingly set one or more of the System Lords to burn Angrezi’s cities, rape and pillage their people just to get at one lone Goa’uld whom none of them have seen in a thousand years.”

“But we are getting away from the key question,” he added after Sam subsided. “Which revolves around why you think I should take you with me into a battle rather than lock you up next to your Colonel Maybourne.”

“You do not know that the Tok’ra are responsible. Only on Angrezi can we discover the truth,” Teal’c said calmly, unmoved by the explicit threat.

Nekhrun snorted. “Responsible is one thing that that the Tok’ra have never been,” he replied bitterly. “Guilty is more their speed. However, if you want to take your chances down there, then I’ll give you the chance to prove me wrong.” He nodded to the guards. “Take them to their quarters so that they can prepare and then bring them to the ready room for the Number Four Ring Transporter.”

Teal’c inclined his head in thanks and the Goa’uld shook his head dismissively. “Don’t thank me, shol’va,” he said somewhat wearily. “Once down there, you are on your own. Come back with proof of how the Goa’uld discovered my location or do not return at all.”

.oOo.

Von Pinn was in the ready room when SG-1 arrived, back in their BDUs and carrying the weapons that they had brought with them. For his part, von Pinn was wearing the same field gear as before and adjusting the fit of what looked like opaque wrap-around sunglasses. The carbine propped against the bench beside him had a similar short grip to the stunners that they had been provided during their previous deployment with the Angrezi troops, and a short cylinder under the barrel suggested that it had some sort of complementary weapon system.

“I rather gather that the Admiral’s a little bit pissed with you,” he observed, looking up in their direction. “He’s not been very forthcoming about his reasons though. Or why you’re coming along with us on this little jaunt.”

“He thinks it’s a mite convenient that the Goa’uld are attacking the Angrezi only days after we found them,” Jack said. “And he’s right, it does seem suspicious. But the only way to find out whether there’s an actual leak at our end is to find out from the Jaffa, or from a Goa’uld if one is directing the attack.”

“So you’ve got something to prove?” the Lieutenant noted. “I see. Well, that sounds like a truly reckless goal to be pursuing. Are you sure that you aren’t trying too hard to live up to your reputations?”

“It’s Earth’s reputation that we’re trying to salvage,” Jack told him.

“Ah. Point,” conceded von Pinn. “Alright then. You aren’t getting the full briefing, because frankly you’ve got a good chance of getting captured and we don’t want you spilling our operations plan to the Jaffa, so here’s the abbreviated version. He pulled out a PDA and tapped on it twice, displaying a small holographic map of the island above the device. The island quickly expanded, disappearing as it reached the limits of the display’s limits, focusing on the area around the Stargate.

“We’ll be put down here,” he said, pointing to a green triangle about a mile from the Stargate and sheltered from it by a ridge. “By we, I mean me and my command post as well as one company of my infantry. The Jaffa have defensive positions around the Stargate. Several units have left the immediate area. We’re sure of two that have headed in this direction,” he indicated the direction taken by the road. “And there are at least three more that are heading for other points on the coast. There are presumably patrols out, but that’s a little difficult to pinpoint from orbit, which is pretty much the only good intel we have. The units that have marched out are about a thousand strong each – the defences seem to be manned by about two thousand Jaffa, with up to a thousand reinforcements available from whatever unit is coming through the Stargate at the moment. There are around twenty Death Gliders on the ground inside the defences, we estimate that there are at least as many in operation, either providing cover for the other units or scouting. Questions?”

“You said that your command post and one company would be here?” Daniel asked. “Where will the rest of the force be?”

“I’m not going to tell you,” von Pinn explained as if to a child. “What you don’t know…”

“We can’t tell,” Jack finished. “Is there any way we can avoid getting shot at by your soldiers?”

“Apart from not going down there? The troops have been briefed that you’re down there and the rules of engagement that we’re operating under are to use stun if in doubt. However, most of the time we’ll be using lethal force – given the numbers involved, leaving Jaffa to wake up and get back into the fight isn’t exactly desirable – so try to give plenty of warning if you approach any of our troops.”

“So we’re basically screwed.”

“Yes, well there’s a lot of that going around,” von Pinn pointed out. “Much as I was raised to respect the heroes who died at the Hot Gates, I’d really rather not re-enact their last stand if I can avoid it. They did all die, after all.”

.oOo.

The rings vanished from around them and the first thing Jack felt was the chill of the night around them. They had been placed in a small gap between the pine trees that covered a good swathe of the island, a gap just large enough for the rings to appear. Around them more ring transports were arriving, each leaving squad after squad of soldiers, each equipped the same way as von Pinn, whose squad was nearest to SG-1. At an unseen signal, the soldiers spread out and began to move up the slope that they had appeared at the foot of, squads leapfrogging each other up the slope.

“Good luck,” von Pinn said simply as he walked past them, carbine held low and ready to fire.

“Well,” Jack said as the soldiers moved out of sight (not that far in the darkness) “Unless any of you want to chase after one of those Jaffa units that’s marching around, we’d better go look for some of those patrols that von Pinn mentioned and work our way up.”

“It is unlikely that a patrol will include an officer of sufficient rank to be aware of sources of information, O’Neill,” Teal’c pointed out, nonetheless gesturing in the direction he thought most promising to locate a Jaffa patrol.

“Never underestimate the spread of gossip, buddy,” Jack pointed out. “Even if they don’t know where the information came from, they’ll almost certainly know who does, or know someone who can tell us who knows.”

“Do we have time for that?” Daniel asked.

“I don’t think we can afford not to try, Danny,” Jack said, glad that the dark of the night concealed his face. “If this comes to an open war with the Goa’uld then I can’t see Apophis not taking the opportunity to swat Earth in passing. The only reason that he hasn’t so far is that the other System Lords would be wary of the power that Earth would offer him. If they’ve got the Confederacy to drool over then they’ll be paying a lot less attention to what happens to us. The whole balance of power is going to be a thing of the past.”

“I can’t believe that Dad would let the Tok’ra do something like this,” Sam said quietly.

“It’s possible that the Tok’ra Council overruled him,” suggested Jack. “Or Anise could be running this on her own. She was there as well and it sounds like she’s got a fairly major grudge against Nekhrun.”

“Either way, it sounds like you think Nekhrun’s right about the Tok’ra leaking the information to one of the Goa’uld,” she said.

“I really hope that its just a coincidence,” Jack said. “But he’s right, it’d be one hell of a coincidence for them to turn up right after we told the Tok’ra where to find him.”

“What do we do if they did tell the Goa’uld?” Daniel asked.

Jack hesitated. “I don’t know, Danny. We’ll have to be damn careful what we tell them about in the future. Because if Nekhrun’s right about them… then they’d probably write us off and let the Goa’uld take us with all the remorse of the phone company announcing a rate hike.”

.oOo.

“Alpha Company is in position,” von Pinn reported, his words relayed by a tight beam signal to the Leonidas and then down to a receiver that was pressed against the ear of Admiral Sario Ayodhya. “Beta and Gamma companies also report as ready.”

“Excellent,” Ayodhya approved. “I have my own companies in position to close the door any time so we can begin any time. What’s the best estimate of when they’ll finish bringing through the current batch of Jaffa?”

“Not long, sir,” replied von Pinn. “There are about eight hundred there at the moment, so judging by the previous deployments we they’ll be forming up to move out in about five minutes.” The operations plan called for the attack to be launched just as a unit of Jaffa were about to move out, in order to ensure that the previous group would be as far away as possible when the attack came. Of course that would put just a little over five hundred Confederate infantry up against around three thousand Jaffa who were in prepared defensive positions.

One of the squad sergeants had enquired if they were perhaps being a little unfair on the Jaffa. Von Pinn had reminded the younger man that unfairness in warfare was something of a given and that at least it was on their side this time. In a gesture that could have been mistaken for chivalry, Beta Company had offered to share any candy in their field rations with any Jaffa that might be taken prisoner, as compensation for the asskicking that they would be facing. Of course, given that field rations were made by the lowest bidder, that wasn’t necessarily a kindness.

“On a side-issue,” von Pinn enquired. “I realise it’s a bit late to do anything about it, but are you sure that you want the Tau’ri wandering around? Even the most favourable reports on them say that they are a mite… unpredictable is the word, I think.”

“They have something to prove,” Ayodhya growled.

Von Pinn hesitated. “I know that diplomatic concerns aren’t exactly my responsibility… but if they get their heads shot off by the Jaffa…”

“Then I’ll send their bodies back to Earth, with a message telling whoever reads it exactly who was responsible for their deaths,” Ayodhya growled. “Maybe Captain Carter’s father will feel a pang or two when he finds out that it was his loose tongue that killed his daughter.”

“His father, sir?” von Pinn asked and then frowned. “Never mind sir, no time. Time is minus sixty seconds and counting.” He gestured sharply and one of his soldiers brought a low powered laser designator up, aiming it at the foot of the Stargate.

“Sixty seconds,” Ayodhya confirmed. “Captain Carter’s father is host to a Tok’ra, Lieutenant.”

The younger man’s head jerked upwards at that little revelation. Not all of the Confederate’s citizens were descended from tribes abandoned by the Tok’ra to face Goa’uld wrath… but enough of them were that the stories were an inescapable part of the Confederacy’s mythology. “I see,” he said after a few seconds. “Von Pinn out.”

Stowing the transceiver handset he glanced left and then right, even with his night vision goggles barely able to pick out the shapes of his soldiers. They were good men, damn good. And there were a lot more good men that were about to die – on both sides, he conceded to himself. It wasn’t the fault of the Jaffa that they had been born slaves.

Fire blazed in the sky as a Death Glider exploded suddenly and then a squadron of fighter-bombers from the carrier Sparta slashed through the sky and missiles carved fiery lines across the blackness to hammer into the ground around the DHD and the Stargate. Dirt and Jaffa flesh went flying.

“Men of the 33rd!” von Pinn screamed. “THIS IS WHERE WE FIGHT!” He brought up his carbine and let the fully charged under barrel cannon hammer a bolt of energy through one of the crude fortifications, blasting it to rubble. “THIS IS WHERE THEY DIE!”

He came up from where he had knelt just behind the ridge overlooking the Stargate and charged down the slope, carbine spitting blue death into the ranks of the shocked and disorganised Jaffa.

A wave of light infantry followed him down as the bombers swept across the sky again, laying cluster munitions across the hollow.

.oOo.

Almost a mile away, Jack swallowed a curse and hugged the ground as the Jaffa that he was trailing turned almost as a man to stare in the direction of the loud noises and bright lights that were coming from the direction of the Stargate. They couldn’t have started the attack maybe five minutes later? Jack complained mentally.

Fortunately, the Jaffa, in staring at the bright lights on the horizon, seemed to have done various unpleasant things to their night vision so they didn’t spot Jack.

There was a whoosh and something big and fast went across the sky not so far above their heads.

This is insane, Jack noted. I’ve gone completely insane. I could have sworn that I saw a X-Wing just fly overhead.

“Name of Apophis!” one of the Jaffa exclaimed. “Was that one of our Death Gliders?”

“No,” an older Jaffa corrected him. “One of the evil god Nekhrun’s. See how it hugs the ground because it fears the wrath of our righteous lord.”

There was an explosion in the sky and Jack was pretty sure that it wasn’t the X-Wing look-alike that had just bought a farm. “Fear,” the younger Jaffa repeated weakly. “Yes, of course.”

“Just remember, boy,” the older man advised. “There are plenty of things out there that can kill you, but there is nothing there that you can’t kill. Come dawn, we’ll crush the Jaffa of Nekhrun and bring him before our lord in chains. Then there will be glory and feasting.”

“I kind of doubt it,” Jack said, rising to his feet, P90 aimed at the two of them. “Put the staff weapons down – you’re surrounded.”

The older Jaffa was old enough to know when someone had the drop on him. The younger, presumably, had been raised on too many stories of daring heroes who could react swiftly enough to turn the tables on their captors. He was fast enough to bring the relatively clumsy staff weapon almost halfway around towards Jack when a shot by Teal’c caught him squarely in the back, dropping him to the floor to roll down the hill, unconscious.

“He’s lucky that was a zat,” Jack observed, “otherwise someone would have to pick what was left of his chain mail out of his spine before they buried him.”

“He’s young,” the older Jaffa said, holding his own staff weapon in an obviously non-threatening posture. At a gesture from Jack he lowered the weapon to the ground. “Will he have the chance to grow older?”

“That depends,” Jack told him. “If your ‘god’ wins then he’s probably in a lot of trouble. The Goa’uld aren’t noticeably forgiving of failure in my experience.”

The Jaffa closed his eyes. “If you expect me to betray my God then kill me now.”

“Oh,” Jack said and grinned suddenly as inspiration struck him. “I’m not asking you to betray your master. Although I have to wonder which of the Goa’uld was stupid enough to walk into a trap like this. I mean, no one’s seen Nekhrun for what – a thousand years? – but as soon as word gets out that he’s back – bang! - several thousand Jaffa come running through the Stargate.” He stared at the Goa’uld’s forehead, but it was too dark to make out any details of the tattoo. “So which idiot is it that you work for?”

“He serves Heru-ur,” Teal’c said firmly, stepping out from the darkness. “I recognise your voice, V’Neef.”

V’Neef stiffened. “Teal’c!” he exclaimed, throwing a glance over his shoulder. “You are – but you are Shol’va. You serve the Tau’ri.” He paled. “So Nekhrun is truly not here.”

Teal’c simply fired his zat again, dropping the Goa’uld where he lay. “V’Neef once served Ra,” he advised. “After the death of Ra he entered Heru-ur’s service. He would never reveal anything to us.”

“Heru-ur,” Jack said thoughtfully. “He’s a fairly hands on Goa’uld, isn’t he. Think he might have come here himself?”

“It is most probable,” Teal’c confirmed. “Heru’ur entrusts such a large number of Jaffa only to his most trusted lieutenants or to himself and he would trust no other Goa’uld with access to a world as rich as Angrezi.” 

Daniel and Sam joined them. “But he wouldn’t come here without some means of escape, Jack,” Daniel pointed out. “Which means that there must be a cloaked ship nearby, ready to evacuate him.”

Jack blinked and then looked at Sam. “Carter, if we can find that ship before Heru’ur gets his butt kicked then we’ve got our source of information for Nekhrun.”

Sam frowned. “Sir, I’m not a miracle worker. I can’t just defeat a cloaking field with what I’ve got in my pack.”

“But you could break the cloak on, say, a Tel’tak?”

“Well I’ve got a theory.”

“What do you need?”

.oOo.

Ayodhya’s communicator chirped and he ducked down behind cover to take the call. A staff weapon blast hit the piled dirt in front of him, sending a spray of dirt over him but doing nothing productive. The fight at the Stargate was going fairly well, but the nearest unit of Jaffa had responded quickly and only the all too thin lines of the improvised battalion that he had pieced together out of the troop detachments aboard his cruisers were holding them back.

“Ayodhya,” he snapped. “What’s the situation?”

“Fumizuki here,” came the voice of Leonidas’ captain. Kou Fumizuki hadn’t been ecstatic about his Admiral running off with a bunch of groundpounders, but Nekhrun’s experience in combat on every level was too great an advantage for the Admiral to keep it penned up on the bridge of the powerful destroyer. “We have a request from the Tau’ri for some technical support. They think that Heru-ur may be leading the attack personally and want to lay a little trap for him.”

“Heru-ur?” Nekhrun mused. “Interesting. Alright, Captain. You’re authorised to assist them, but keep an eye on them.”

“Both eyes, when I can afford them,” Fumizuki confirmed and ended the call.

With a shake of his head Ayodhya banished all thought of what SG-1 might be up to – it didn’t matter now. The Jaffa were spreading out to work their way around the flanks of the thin line and something needed to be done about that. Pulling a pair of flare grenades out of his field vest, the Goa’uld yanked both tabs and flung the first towards the scanty cover that the Jaffa were working with and then pause a moment before throwing the second towards the front of his lines.

The flares did exactly what they were supposed to – bright purple-white light erupting from two points in their lines, sending startled Jaffa scattering for cover. Blue bolts of energy lashed out from the troops around Nekhrun, picking off the suddenly illuminated Jaffa with their carbines. The Goa’uld slave soldiers who had learned from their previous experiences dropped and played dead. Those who hadn’t dropped as well, although their deaths were no pretence.

There was a roar and two X-wings raced across the Goa’uld lines, their wingtip cannons blazing as they strafed the enemy positions.

It wouldn’t stop Heru-ur’s soldiers from pushing the Confederate soldiers again, Nekhrun noted, but it would buy more time and that was all that was needed.

His communicator chirped again, a longer and more complex sequence this time and Ayodhya smiled. That call didn’t need to be answered – it was a predetermined signal. “Back to the next line,” he ordered on the battalion’s tactical command channel. “Don’t leave anyone behind.”

The Jaffa wouldn’t have any of his dead to gloat over when they realised that the defences had been abandoned, he swore to himself. And they’d get a nasty surprise at the next line of defences, for that signal had been confirmation that the Stargate had been secured so that no further reinforcements could arrive for the invaders. Which meant that the next line of defences would be manned already, by Shakuntala’s battalion of the Angrezi Royal Brigade of Guards.

“Ready to receive my men, your Highness?” he asked on another frequency.

“Confirmed,” she replied coolly. “We have firebases on the heights either side of the road, just move right past us and they’ll get a nasty surprise when they think they have you broken.”

“I’ll do that,” Ayodhya agreed and reached over to pick up the body of a luckless infantryman next him. It would be a closed coffin funeral for the poor lad, a staff weapon blast had caught him just below the throat and decapitated him, but with his strength augmented by Nekhrun, the admiral could easily carry the body and keep up with the rest of the men.

Almost two hundred surviving Confederate Light Infantry turned and ran, trusting to darkness and surprise to cover them as they headed for the gap in the hills that led to the Stargate.

.oOo.

“Are you sure this will work?” Jack asked as Sam fiddled with the equipment she’d requisitioned from the Leonidas.

“No,” she replied honestly. “But I’ve been thinking about how the cloaking fields work for a while and there’s a possibility that I might be able to detect it while it’s in the atmosphere.”

“And if it’s in orbit?” asked Daniel.

“Then we’re out of luck,” Sam said. “I’m going to be scanning for ionised particles in the atmosphere caused by interactions between -”

“Stop!” Jack protested. “It’ll sniff out the cloak right?”

“Uh, if the theory I have is correct,” Sam conceded.

“Right, okay. That’s all I gotta know,” he explained. “When can we start?”

She finished twisting together a set of wires and crystals that didn’t make any sense at all to Jack, “Right now.”

The device burbled for a moment and then proceeded to do… well, nothing that Jack could determine.

“Is it working?”

“It’s working,” Sam promised. “It’s just that there aren’t any of the particles here. We’ll need to move around to find some.”

“That could take forever, Carter.”

“Jack,” Daniel sighed. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Jack frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Well the Leonidas has ring transporters, right? And they presumably have a good idea of the weather patterns on the island. So can’t they just move us up whatever side of the island the prevailing winds are blowing?”

Jack sighed and reached for his radio again. “I hope that Captain Fumizuki is still feeling accommodating.”


	6. Chapter Five

As dawn broke over the island, more than a thousand engines roared to life and more than ten thousand Angrezi soldiers moved out from hidden armouries around the coasts. The air battle was still raging above them as their own Aspic jets launched to support the Confederate X-Wings in hunting down the remaining Death Gliders. At least two dozen of the latter had been on the ground waiting for dawn and the renewed attack so control of the air was still contested and two full regiments of jump infantry had to remain in reserve, waiting for the opportunity to make a run towards the Stargate.

On the ground, the Jaffa had begun to retreat towards their only means to receive reinforcements. Only one unit continued to advance and a ferocious firefight broke out at one armoury as they clashed with half their number of Angrezi mechanised infantry. The sideshow drew off two more battalions from the main clash around the Stargate, but ultimately it wouldn’t change anything.

The decision over Angrezi’s continued freedom would take place in the hills around the Stargate. And it would be at least three hours before the first of the reinforcements could reach Nekhrun and Shakuntala’s positions…

.oOo.

“Does anyone actually know what the Tau’ri are up to?” Fumizuki asked.

The operations officer scratched his head. “Well they’re bouncing up the coast of the island using the ring transporter to jump about a mile at a time. I’m not sure why…”

“It’s not straining the power grid or anything?”

“Compared to rapid deployment of an entire three battalion force? No, not really. Might need to run a little maintenance on Number Four next time we can spare it, but we’re well within tolerances.”

“Well I hope they accomplish something,” Fumizuki said. “The Admiral looked pretty upset with them and if the Goa’uld really are going to lower the hammer on us then we’ll need all the allies we can get.”

.oOo.

“Have you found anything yet?” Jack asked as Sam ran the thirty or fortieth test. Quite apart from the annoyance of having spent most of a hour inside ring transports, he was beginning to pick up a wicked case of jet lag, one that didn’t seem to affect any of the others. Of course, Daniel and Sam tended to keep fairly ludicrous hours anyway and Teal’c did that whole meditation thing, but it seemed rather unfair that he was the only one suffering for the previous day and night having lasted something like thirty-six hours.

“There are some traces, sir,” she replied. “Not enough to pinpoint the ship yet, but it’s safe to say that it’s around. I’ll need some more readings to find it.”

“Can’t you just,” Jack waved his hand. “Triangulate for it?”

“Sir, that only works if you’re tracking something that radiates in all directions. We’re tracing a signature that’s carried by the wind and not very evenly.”

“Oh,” Jack said and looked around. “Where do we go next?”

Sam studied the map, which was now augmented by numbers she’d scribbled on with a red marker. “Now we go inland of the strongest traces and see if there are any more particles.” She lifted her radio. “Leonidas, this is Captain Carter. We need to go about ten miles east now.”

“That might not be the best idea, Captain,” protested the ring transporter’s operator. “That’s going to put you right between the Angrezi and the Jaffa.”

“Oh?” Jack asked, perking up. “How’s that going?”

“Uh, I’m a technician, Colonel, so I don’t really know but most of the Jaffa are pulling back towards the Stargate. The speed the Angrezi are going, I don’t think that they’ll make it there.”

Sam shook her head. “How close can you put us without putting us in front of the Angrezi?”

“Not very close,” the man said apologetically.

She frowned. “Well it shouldn’t take very long to get the readings,” she said at last. “Just put us down there and be ready to pick us up in a hurry please.”

“Uh, Carter -” Jack began before the rings descended around them.

.oOo.

The Jaffa didn’t seem to be giving up, von Pinn noted as another blast from a staff weapon went above his head. Not that he’d really expected them to, but now that the sun was up and they could see how few in number the Stargate’s defenders were they were pressing their advantage. Fortunately the Stargate itself was out of action, since a shot from one of the missiles fired by the Confederate fighter-bombers had knocked it over, leaving any Jaffa that emerged pressed against the ground and helpless targets. Eventually the heap of dead Jaffa had interrupted the wormhole and the guards had taken the time to heap stones within the hole to ensure it didn’t re-open.

Still, even without more Jaffa pouring through from whichever world Heru’ur was using as a staging post, there were no small number of them outside the arc of hills and they were all desperate to reach and reactivate the gate. Without raising his head above the edge of the foxhole, von Pinn raised his carbine above his head and waited for the sighting image relayed from the targeting scope to his augmented vision goggles to stabilise. He squeezed the trigger twice and a Jaffa who had risen to his feet to fire his staff weapon at the defences fell to the floor, the second bolt going wild above the dead man’s head.

Behind the lieutenant, a turbaned Angrezi guardsman yanked a grenade from his vest and hurled it to one side of the little fortification that topped the hill, towards a file of Jaffa trying to work their way into the dead ground between two of the hills around the Stargate. The grenade exploded short of the Jaffa but it forced them to scatter for cover and infantry on the next hill picked off three of them with lethal zat shots.

“This is getting a little too close,” von Pinn muttered. “The Jaffa have a pretty good idea of our positions. If they rush us, they can probably keep us suppressed while the first ranks get close.”

“Understood,” came Ayodhya’s voice through the radio. “I’ve called back most of our fighters to support us, so don’t hesitate to call them in if you need them. Between us and the Angrezi, most of the Death Gliders are history.”

Von Pinn grunted. Two Death Gliders had managed to punch through and hammer one of the forward redoubts apart before an X-Wing brought one down and chased the other southwards. Out of the twenty-eight men in the platoon that the redoubt had sheltered, only half a dozen had managed to make it back to the next position, the others left dead in the fort or run down by Jaffa overrunning the position. “How are the losses?”

“Pretty heavy amongst the Angrezi,” Ayodhya admitted. “The Aspics aren’t bad craft but there hasn’t been much call for air-to-air combat on Angrezi for a century and their inexperience cost them.” He paused and von Pinn could almost see him shrug. “They’ll learn.”

“The first step, huh,” von Pinn agreed. He’d noticed the same lack of experience even among Shakuntala’s soldiers. Elite troops such as the Palace Guard had been blooded, but only in counter-insurgency action of the kind that had cropped up in some areas of Angrezi. The sudden descent into warfare had cost no small number of them their lives as they learnt practical lessons the hard way. “Hold up, sir. Something’s happening.”

Out in front of von Pinn’s position a large figure had walked out of the Jaffa’s lines. Unlike the grey metals of his men’s gear, he wore gold and he stalked out without any apparent fear of attack. This brashness was vindicated after a moment when a blaster shot from an Angrezi soldier hit the air in front of him, to no noticeable effect.

“Sir, some fellow’s standing out in the open protected by a shield of some kind. He’s all clad in gold, looks like a leader.”

He could hear Nekhrun mutter something in his distinctive voice. “Must be Heru-ur,” he replied. “There aren’t many Goa’uld that ballsy. I knew that these were his forces but I must admit I’m a little surprised he’s leading them in person. Any idea what he’s up to?”

“Angrezi!” the man shouted. “I am the god Heru-ur! I salute your courage! But you cannot prevail! Surrender and I shall spare your lives and those of your people.”

Von Pinn rolled his eyes. “He’s making a speech.”

“I am great and mighty, you suck, hand over Nekhrun?”

“All I ask is the surrender of my treacherous kinswoman, Nekhrun. Once she is in my grasp I shall depart and leave you to live your lives in peace,” Heru-ur bellowed.

“Uh, yeah, basically.”

“Is anyone paying attention?”

A dozen or so blue blaster shots hit the shield around the Goa’uld, followed by two orange bolts of energy from the underbarrel cannon of Confederate infantry carbines. None of them accomplished anything but to make him look imposing as his cloak flapped dramatically in the wind of the explosions.

“Not that I can tell, sir. Do you have any suggestions for how to get past his shield?”

“I’ll be right there.”

.oOo.

Heru-ur was still talking when Ayodhya entered the little redoubt. “Does he ever shut up?” von Pinn asked his superior as the Admiral crawled along the foxhole to join him.

“Every now and then,” Nekhrun grunted. “Most Goa’uld are in love with their own voice.”

“You aren’t exactly dulcet voiced, sir.”

Nekhrun chuckled. “Goa’uld like loud and flashy, lieutenant. I’d have thought you’d have noticed that by now. Oh well, the longer he goes on, the closer the Angrezi get.”

“Why do you fight for Nekhrun?” Heru-ur bellowed. “Is she any different from me? Yes! For she lurks behind you while I fight at the head of my warriors!”

“On the other hand, that little snot needs a spanking,” Nekhrun continued smoothly. “Excuse me.”

“Sir!” von Pinn hissed. “The minute you’re in the open -”

Nekhrun stood up. “Did I hear my name taken in vain, son of Ra?”

Heru-ur glared up the slope. “A male host? Have you changed your habits so far, Nekhrun? Or are you just running out of dupes to fight for you?”

Nekhrun spat. “I taught you how to fight, you little puppy. I don’t think I’ll have much trouble taking you to school again. How about it? I heard you offer before and I think it’s an insult to my fine men up here! You seem to think they’re afraid of you! But I’ll make you a better offer. We fight. You and me.”

“I seem to have you just a little outnumbered, old one,” Heru-ur called back. “Why should I waste my time dealing with you personally? Why shouldn’t I just have you gunned down personally?”

“Take your best shot!” Nekhrun shouted, ignoring von Pinn, who had abandoned trying to gesture for his apparently crazed commander to get down and was now prudently scrambling away. “I’ll even stand still to help your Jaffa hit me, such lousy shots that they are!”

Apparently not foolish enough to miss a free shot, Heru’ur turned to the nearest squad and pointed up at Nekhrun. “Jaffa, kree!”

A half dozen staff weapons rose and then discharged. Embarrassingly for the Jaffa, one shot missed completely. The other five shots struck Nekhrun squarely – or they would have if they hadn’t been deflected by the personal shield that appeared around him.

“Any more stupid questions?” Nekhrun shouted down.

Heru-ur punched one of the Jaffa, the one who’d missed, in the face hard enough to drop the man to the floor before he got control of his temper. “Alright!” he shouted back. “We fight. But when I’ve beaten you, your men are to lay down your weapons and surrender.”

“I really don’t think so!” Nekhrun shouted back. “If you can beat me, then my men will withdraw from the Stargate. You’ve got enough time to get it upright again and escape – barely. But if you lose then your men lay down their weapons and surrender. I’m feeling merciful, so when that happens I’ll let all but their Primes return home through the Stargate.”

The System Lord scowled in thought. “Agreed!” he said at last and a sigh rose up from the Jaffa. “What terms shall we fight under?”

“Between our lines here,” Nekhrun suggested. “Shields to guard us against treachery, one knife each and no other weapons or armour.”

Heru-ur nodded sharply and then called forward a pair of Jaffa to help him out of his elaborate armour.

“Can you trust him, Admiral?” von Pinn asked.

“About as far as he can trust me,” Nekhrun admitted under his breath. “And I used the Ring Transporter to take the DHD up to the Leonidas so even if he manages to beat me he’s fucked. Shakuntala’s moving the last reserves and the wounded up to the other side of the fortifications. If I lose, she’ll leave – peacefully if possible, breaking out by force if she has to. Follow her and don’t worry about me.”

Von Pinn looked mutinous but nodded his head dutifully. His own men had to be his first priority. “Nice shield. When can I expect one?”

“It’s a prototype,” the Admiral admitted. “I wasn’t sure it would take that many shots actually, but now that I know it works it should be in full production sometime in the next year.” He took off his helmet and started unstrapping his vest. “By the way, I left my knife in a Jaffa back near the road. Anyone got a spare to lend me?”

The dozen or so soldiers within earshot immediately offered him the choice of at least half a dozen blades in a wide variety of styles. Ayodhya took two, flipped them easily by their blades and then passed one back. “Thanks,” he said laconically and put the last aside for a moment if he doffed his shirt. Down the slope, Heru-ur was walking out into the gap between the two lines. “Right, time to see if a God-King can bleed.”

“HUA! HUA! HUA!” his men shouted behind him as he hopped out of the foxhole and sauntered down to face Heru-ur, the Jaffa responding with their own shouts and encouragements to their God.

.oOo.

“Are you sure that this was a good idea?” Jack shouted to Sam from the tree he was sheltering behind. Apparently the Jaffa had agreed to the ring transporter operator’s opinion that they couldn’t reach the battle around the Stargate before the Angrezi caught them, so they’d turned around to bloody the nose of the offensive hammering down on them… and SG-1 was caught in the middle of them.

“I just need another minute or two,” she called back. “I’ve almost got the readings I need.”

Behind Sam, Teal’c rose up and fired his staff weapon, catching a Jaffa in the upper chest. His target stopped abruptly, legs flying out from under him before he fell back, a crater burnt into his chest. Then Teal’c had to drop behind cover again as an Angrezi mini-tank fired off a rapid-fire zat barrage at the source of the staff weapon fire.

“Sonuvabitch!” Jack cursed. “Someone want to tell those clowns that we’re all on the same side here?”

“They probably just saw the staff weapon, Jack,” Daniel pointed out. “How are they supposed to know Teal’c’s with us?”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” insisted Jack. He turned around to see a pair of Jaffa trying to use the same cluster of trees that he and Daniel were sheltering in as cover to close on the Angrezi. “You don’t just spray and pray with an automatic weapon. You pick your target and -” with two short bursts he dropped the Jaffa before they even realised that their cover was already occupied. “- use just enough force to put that target out of the fight.”

Daniel shrugged and went back to cowering behind his tree. There was too much lead, well, too much high energy physic flying around for his liking. If this was how Jack felt when there were ruins around and he had to sit around waiting for Daniel to study them – well without the occasional gut-wrenching terror that they’d become collateral damage, because that really wasn’t much of an issue in archaeology – then he supposed that he ought to be more sympathetic next time. Maybe bring a rubber ball for Jack to play with. No, that would be bad, the ball would bounce off something ancient and delicate…

“Got it!” Sam called. “We’re on the right track.”

“So we can go?” Jack asked.

“Eh, oh. Yes!”

Jack nodded and produced his radio. “O’Neill to Leonidas. Four to beam up.”

The rings descended around Sam and Teal’c and then a second set appeared around Jack and Daniel.

“I’ve always wanted to say th-” Jack was cut off as the rings vanished with SG-1. A moment later, a line of Angrezi medium tanks pushed forwards through the forest, driving the Jaffa back in disorder, disorder that the tanks were quick to exploit. The jump infantry might have claimed the title of cavalry from them a few decades ago, but the ethos remained strong within the Angrezi armoured corps.

.oOo.

“It’s been six thousand years since you fled Earth,” Heru-ur observed. “Has the invincible Nekhrun finally stopped running?”

“I warned your father that the Tau’ri would be the death of him,” Nekhrun observed coldly. “How’s his health doing now? Rather warm?”

The two men were of a similar size and build. Heru-ur moved well, Nekhrun observed. He had clearly not forgotten how to fight and had decades, if not centuries of practise in his body. He himself could not claim to equal it, he had only been inside Ayodhya for a few weeks and for much of the time had left Ayodhya in control of his body. No, this would be a test of his own age and experience against Heru-ur’s strength and power.

They circled each other, both holding their daggers in their right hands, the other hand ready to defend with. Heru-ur lunged in suddenly, and Nekhrun barely caught hold of his knife hand’s wrist with his own free hand. Bringing around his own dagger, he slashed at the other Goa’uld’s shoulder but Heru’ur brought his hand up and forced the dagger up, fingers locked around Nekhrun’s wrist, putting them into a classic test of strength, each trying to bear down on each other.

Nekhrun grunted under the pressure. This was definitely not the terms that he’d prefer to settle the contest on. He slammed his forehead forward into Heru-ur’s nose, feeling bone break under the impact. The other Goa’uld’s grip slackened just enough for Nekhrun to drag his knife hand free and slash at the younger man’s arm, drawing blood, before bringing up one of his heavy – steel-toe capped – boots to kick at Heru-ur’s groin.

The kick didn’t connect – he had been slowed perhaps a fraction by the pain of the head butt and Heru-ur was hardly a tyro in the arts of personal combat. In fact, he managed to get his own blade free and slashed at the incoming kick. The knife blade glanced off the boot itself but slashed through the tough fabric of Ayodhya’s pants, inflicting an inconsequential cut as the older Goa’uld leapt back.

“You used to be faster than that,” Heru-ur taunted.

“So did you – I told you to cut back on those heavy desserts,” Nekhrun retorted. “Do you have any muscle under that fat?”

“You’re one to talk,” accused Heru-ur and he closed in again.

.oOo.

“Well that was bracing,” Jack said as he and Daniel arrived from the Leonidas’ Number Five Ring Transporter, which had picked them up while Number Four was busy collecting Sam and Teal’c. “Do we have to do it again or have you found Heru-ur’s ship?”

“I’ve got an approximate location,” Sam said. “Judging by the wind patterns, the particles would have come out of this valley here,” she indicated on her map. “I should be able to narrow it down with a few more tests.”

“Are any more of them going to be into a battlefield?” asked Jack. “Because if so, maybe we should wait until we can borrow a tank to hide in while you do the tests?”

“You should be alright, Colonel,” the ring transporter operator advised. “That valley’s not had any troops sighted when it was overflown so none of the Angrezi troops have been sent that way. Of course if there is an Tel’tak lurking in there then that would make sense, they wouldn’t want to draw any attention, I guess.”

“Oh good,” Jack said dryly. “Shall we go then?”

“Put us down about halfway along the valley, please,” Sam told the operator.

“I think I’m getting ring transporter sick,” Daniel noted as the rings appeared around them for roughly the seventieth time in the last twenty-four hours.

“Are we there yet?” Jack asked. And then they were.

.oOo.

“Does this hurt?” Heru-ur asked as he twisted his knife between the bones of Nekhrun’s forearm.

Nekhrun’s own knife was out of reach at the moment so he replied by pushing his thumb closer to the younger Goa’uld’s eye. He wasn’t making very good ground on that but he had better leverage than Heru’ur for that particular move and he only needed another inch or so…

“Gah!” Heru-ur declared, finally giving up as the thumb came within a half-inch, yanking the knife out with a vicious twist that pretty much put the arm out of action.

His opponent took a deep breath, held it and then exhaled strongly. If this went on much longer, Ayodhya was probably going to sue him for damage done to his body. “Since we seem to be at something of a breathing spot,” he gasped, stepping forward slowly. “There’s something you should know about us.”

Heru-ur shook his head, also breathing hard. “What?”

“I am your father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate,” he said, stepping closer.

For a moment the System Lord looked utterly gobsmacked by the revelation. Then: “What the devil are you babbling about? You are my father’s brother! So are half the other System Lords!”

“And…” Nekhrun smirked, “This is what you’d call a distraction. Take a look at your troops!”

Heru-ur half-turned his head and Nekhrun took advantage of the distraction to leap upon him like a panther, knocking him to the floor. The two Goa’uld rolled over and over on the ground, wrestling over the control of Heru-ur’s knife.

“You’re at the end of the road,” Heru-ur snarled, butting Nekhrun viciously in the face and then pinning him against the floor. Then he shrieked in pain as Nekhrun’s teeth closed around his ear and ground down. Spitting out what was left of Heru-ur’s ear, Nekhrun managed to get his hand free and jabbed him under the ribs.

“Are you sure it isn’t you that’s losing touch with your divinity?” the older of the two Goa’uld grunted, pulling himself free. Heru-ur moved for the knife but Nekhrun kicked it further away. “Fighting in the mud like an animal? Truly godlike, aren’t you?”

The other Goa’uld tackled him to the ground. “Just die!” he roared.

.oOo.

“There it is?” Sam whispered, holding her sensor up in illustration. “The strongest trace of the ionised elements is coming from inside that ravine to the right. There’s just barely enough room for an Tel’tak to have settled down in there.”

“Just out of interest,” Daniel asked. “Now that we’ve found the ship, what are we going to do about it. Wouldn’t we have to get inside it to do any good.”

“Ah,” Jack nodded. “Yes, good point.” Everyone looked at him expectantly. “What?”

“Do you have any ideas?”

He frowned. “Hm… no. Fresh out of ideas.”

“I am sure that the Confederacy would be more than happy to destroy the Tel’tak with an air strike,” Teal’c suggested. “However, that would not reveal the required information.”

“And while it’s clocked we won’t even be able to find the hatch,” Sam added.

Jack eyed the ravine thoughtfully. “How stable do you think those rocks are? We could probably trigger a rockslide if we had a couple of grenades.”

“You brought grenades to a diplomatic reception?” Daniel asked in disbelief.

“No, hence the ‘if we had a couple of grenades’.”

Teal’c opened his rucksack’s side pocket and pulled out two fragmentation grenades.

“Okay, Teal’c. You brought grenades to a diplomatic reception?”

“A fortuitous preparation, O’Neill.”

“…yeah, you’re right. Okay, kids. Let’s go rock-climbing. First one to the top gets to drop the rocks on Mister Tel’tak.”

.oOo.

Ain’ur spilled the cup of water he was drinking all over himself as there was a sound like thunder and the Tel’tak’s hull boomed like a bell. “What in the name of the Gods was that!?”

His companion Stross stared at the controls. “I don’t know, but the cloak has failed.” He manipulated the controls. “There’s been a rockslide – half the left side of the Tel’tak is buried.”

“Is the ring transporter functional?” Ain’ur asked quickly. If their god needed to be brought aboard it would not do to fail him.

“I believe so,” Stross concluded, checking the damage. “The cloak only failed because it was physically penetrated to such an extent. Our hull remains intact.”

Ain’ur nodded. “Good. We should move and reactivate the cloak. Prepare for take off. I will select a new landing site.” Leaving Stross to carry out the work, he brought up a map on his own terminal. “The nearest site is too exposed to their aircraft. There is another valley further north that will suffice.” He looked up and saw Stross staring at the door into the cargo bay of the Tel’tak. “Stross?”

“I think he’s looking at me,” Jack told him, stepping through the doorway covering the pair with his P90. Carter followed, her own rifle raised. “Now why don’t you put your hands on top of your heads and play nice or this conversation will get a lot less pleasant.”

Ain’ur gulped and obeyed, followed a moment later by Stross. “Who are you?”

“Colonel Jack O’Neill, US Air Force,” Jack introduced himself and saw their eyes go very satisfying wide.

“The Tau’ri?”

“Uh-huh.”

Stross and Ain’ur were very meek as Jack marched them one at a time back to the cargo hold for Teal’c to tie up.

“What the Goa’uld tell their Jaffa about us?” he asked Daniel quietly. “These two looked just about ready to wet themselves when they recognised me.”

“Uh, do you remember that British TV show that I introduced you too.”

“The one with the red spaceship?”

“No, the one in Elizabethan England. Blackadder.”

“Oh… yeah, that was pretty good. But what’s that got to do with us?”

“You remember the Baby-Eating Bishop of Bath and Wells?”

Jack nodded. “Sure… hey!”

.oOo.

Heru-ur wasn’t looking quite as dapper as he glared at Nekhrun. His ear had been thoroughly mangled by Nekhrun’s teeth and his cloth of gold pants were torn and stained with dirt and blood. The rest of him wasn’t significantly cleaner.

Of course, Nekhrun looked, if anything, even worse. His pants were more or less intact but where the cut on Heru-ur’s left arm had more or less closed by now, his own arm still hung limp at his side and his nose had been broken in the last tussle. He was also grinning triumphantly.

“I don’t know what you’re smiling about,” Heru-ur growled. “You’re losing.”

“I’m smiling because I know something that you don’t know,” Nekhrun replied.

Heru-ur spat on the ground, the gobbet of spittle noticeably red with blood. “Then enlighten me, o once and fallen teacher. What wisdom do you have to impart?”

Nekhrun’s smirk grew truly vicious. “How about that I’ve got two shields now?” he said and held up the projection unit for Heru-ur’s personal shield device.

Heru-ur’s eyes bulged and he grabbed at his belt where the projector had been attached. Then he grabbed a second item from his belt and thumbed a gem set halfway along it. Nekhrun’s eyes widened slightly as the device, actually a very compact set of memory metals snapped out to full size around Heru-ur, surrounding him with what was recognisably the framework of a ring device.

“A new trick,” Nekhrun conceded. “Are you leaving already?”

“I will return,” Heru-ur declared dramatically. “And I will have my revenge.”

“Well you’re half-right anyway,” Nekhrun told the empty air as the ring transporter activated, collapsing into a heap of wiring and crystals once Heru-ur was gone. “A one shot ring transporter terminal,” he mused. “Ingenious.” Then he turned away, making a mental note to have the remains checked by a science crew later, and started walking towards the Jaffa. Time to negotiate a surrender.

“Your god has abandoned you,” he said in a flat, clear voice that Ayodhya had spent hours practising to ensure that he could be heard from one end of a parade ground to the other without mechanical assistance. “You are completely surrounded by my allies.” He paused. “By my word and my bond, you shall be allowed to leave through the Stargate. Now lay down your weapons.”

There was a long pause as if ten thousand men were holding their breath against the decisions being made.

And then a single staff weapon fell onto the ground.

It was followed by another, and then another as the Jaffa admitted defeat.

It was also followed by their tears as they admitted the truth.

Their God had abandoned them.

.oOo.

“Prepare to depart,” Heru-ur ordered the moment he appeared in the Tel’tak. “We must join the fleet immediately.”

“Fleet?” Jack said. “What fleet is that?”

Heru-ur stared around. The only Jaffa visible was not Stross or Ain'ur, but a towering black man with the mark of Apophis tattooed in gold on his brow. The man addressing him was… recognition sank in. “Tau’ri!”

“I know what you’re thinking,” Jack said, gesturing with the muzzle of his P90. “You’re thinking that you’re behind that forcefield gizmabob of yours and that our bullets can’t hurt you. But maybe if we can find your cloaked ship then maybe we can make bullets that can penetrate your forcefield. So the question is… do you feel lucky, punk?”

The Goa’uld stared at him in disbelief and then slowly his shoulders slumped. “I hate Nekhrun,” he hissed. “I hate the Tok’ra. I hate this forsaken planet. And most of all, you Tau’ri… I truly hate you Tau’ri more than anything in the entire universe.”

“You make me feel all warm and fuzzy,” Jack said. “Now why don’t you just step towards the rear hatch so that we can take you into custody. And while you’re at it, I wouldn’t want you to be using any nasty little devices that might be hidden away, so why don’t you keep your hands on top of your head where they won’t get up to any mischief.”

“I’ll just call the Leonidas,” Sam said from the cockpit. “I’m sure they have the facilities to keep him in secure confinement.”

“You do that,” Jack agreed, not looking away from Heru-ur as he walked towards the hatch. Outside, Stross and Ain’ur were kneeling on the ground, hands tied behind their backs and ankles tied together and then to the nearest tree. “I’ll be sure to pass your compliments on to Nekhrun,” he added. “Are there any particular messages that I should take to the Tok’ra?”

“Tell that bastard Delek that his mother Egeria will suffer for his crimes against me,” Heru-ur snarled vengefully. “Even if you animals slay me, know that the vengeance of Heru-ur is inescapable. Egeria’s fate is sealed forever.”

Daniel frowned and Jack half-turned his head. “Mean anything to you, Da-”

He broke off as Heru-ur took advantage of the perceived lack of attention, running for cover behind the Tel’tak. Reflexively Jack fired and was surprised to see that rather being halted by a forcefield, the rounds cut Heru-ur’s legs out from under him, leaving him screaming in agony.

“Sonuvabitch,” he said in surprise. “He wasn’t even wearing a forcefield. Wonder how that happened.”

Heru-ur managed to focus his eyes on Jack. “You – you didn’t have shield-breaking weapons? I suppose that we are both liars then, Colonel Jack O’Neill. But your trap has not just caught me – it has caught you. Did you think I would not share my knowledge of Nekhrun’s whereabouts with the other System Lords?”

Jack frowned and looked at Daniel. “Have the Leonidas hurry up bringing Heru-ur aboard,” he said. “I think their intelligence people will want a word with him.”

.oOo.

Hours later, with the mopping up still taking place on the ground, SG-1 were ushered into the observation deck of the Leonidas. The room was more crowded than they remembered it, with a grand U of tables taking up the bulk of the room. Around it sat a dozen officers in Confederate uniforms, including von Pinn, Fumizuki and, with his arm in a sling, Ayodhya. There were almost as many Angrezi at the table, along with perhaps half as many civilians that Jack recognised from the reception as being members of the Confederate diplomatic corps.

“Welcome aboard again,” Ayodhya said and gestured towards four empty chairs. “Please seat yourselves. I would value your input on the current situation.”

He tapped a small control panel sitting on the table and a holographic display appeared in the middle of the U, displaying the familiar map of Angrezi’s Stargate Island. “As you are all aware, the situation on Angrezi has been contained. While some Jaffa continue to fight, organised resistance has ceased. The sealing of the Stargate and the capture of Heru-ur have essentially settled the matter. With that dealt with, it is time to look at the bigger picture.”

Another tap of the controls caused the map to shrink suddenly, reducing the scale until all Angrezi was visible, and then shrinking down until the entire star system was only a glowing dot among dozens of others. “On the interstellar scale, this shows the immediate area of the Confederacy. Obviously it would not be practical to patrol all of it, but the key issue is these locations.” Fourteen points of light went crimson, two of them quite close to Angrezi.

“May I ask their significance?” General Soor asked from where he was sitting on the opposite side of the U from SG-1.

“These worlds,” Ayodhya said grimly, “Are all under the control of the System Lords. To be specific, they are the only such worlds this side of the Passage of Nylor, which is closed by the Asgard. It’s not impossible to reach them by ship of course, but they’ll have to take the long way around, adding days to the journey. As long as they can resupply those planets by Stargate, any of them would be a viable staging ground for the System Lords to mount an attack upon the Confederacy. And the only world that they know the location of is Angrezi.”

“You expect us to come under attack then?” asked a young woman wearing an Angrezi uniform. Sam blinked and then smiled as she saw that it was Princess Shakuntala.

Ayodhya nodded. “When our Tau’ri friends captured Heru-ur he was talking about making a rendezvous with a fleet. That suggests that his fleet, at the least, is on its way here.” He tapped his fingers together for a moment, the tension rising. “Which, with things as they stand, is about as good as we could hope for.”

“You want Angrezi to be attacked?” Soor asked in surprise.

“If it means that we know where and approximately when the blow will fall, then yes,” the Admiral said unflinchingly. “Shortly after the first reports of the Jaffa attack through the Stargate, I ordered a courier to make for Heinessen recommending immediate execution of Operation Mount Niitaka, the Confederacy’s primary scenario for war with the System Lords. Given that we are currently significantly outnumbered by the System Lords, the plan calls for the use of every advantage that we have to even the odds as far as is possible. And a defensive victory over Angrezi will bleed them severely.”

He indicated the display. “Operation Mount Niitaka has the primary goal of eliminating likely staging grounds for the Goa’uld in this sector of the Galaxy. If approved, each of these worlds will come under attack in the next forty-eight hours by an CFSF Battle Group. A sweep of the sector will also remove every Stargate that we have been able to locate from a broad swathe of space around the Confederacy. The only gates that remain will be those that are under tight control. In the short term, this commits the bulk of the Fleet to offensive operations, on the assumption, a hazardous one, I admit, that the Goa’uld have only a limited knowledge of where the Confederacy is located.”

“But they do know where Angrezi lies,” Soor snapped.

“And Angrezi is part of the Confederacy now,” Ayodhya advised confidently. “The Confederacy does not abandon its own. I admit that the forces available are not as large as I would like… but has anyone ever known a military commander to admit he has too many troops at his disposal?”

There were chuckles from several places around the table.

“In the short term, my own battle group will remain here, along with whatever forces can be sent from the reserve,” Ayodhya continued. “Part of the forces employed for the offensive arm of the Operation will also return here rather than to their usual bases, as this is the most likely place for the System Lords to attack.”

Jack considered. “What will your Fleet do if a large fleet is already at one of those worlds when they arrive?” he asked.

“Establish a picket and report in,” Ayodhya admitted. “If they stay there then a fleet will be massed to deal with them, if not then there should be at least some warning from the pickets before they arrive – our hyperdrives are a little faster than theirs. And raid the planet once they’re gone of course.”

Daniel paled, envisaging Confederate Star Destroyers descending upon populations as helpless as those of Abydos or a thousand other worlds. “What will happen to the people on those planets?”

“They’ll become involuntary colonists, Doctor,” Captain Fumizuki told him. “Several of the worlds that Lord Nekhrun settled refugees from the System Lords on have unexplored continents. The local populations will be removed to them and given the basic tools to rebuild their lives away from the System Lords. From then on, their lives will be in their own hands.”

“It’s not exactly fair,” Ayodhya admitted. “We’ll be forcing thousands of people away from their homes. But cold-bloodedly, if we leave them where they are then they can be used to rebuild the facilities that we are about to destroy. This way they will have new homes, and their freedom.”

Daniel relaxed slightly. “I was more concerned that they might be left there,” he admitted. “Some of the System Lords would likely make reprisals for them not stopping you from destroying their property.”

“Can your battle group hold of Heru-ur if his fleet arrives before reinforcements?” The question came from Soor, who seemed only somewhat relieved by the information thus far made available.

“Our best estimates of Heru-ur’s fleet place him as having perhaps as many as thirty Ha’tak class vessels in various states of repair. Some of those would be needed to protect his own territory, others would not be fully operational. If he is attacking alone – which is likely if he was personally leading the attack since otherwise he would be exposed to the treachery of his allies – then it is unlikely that he could deploy more than twenty-three or twenty-four warships. That pushes the extreme limit of what my battle group, even with the assistance of your current orbital defences, can handle without reinforcements.”

“And if he wasn’t acting alone?” enquired Shakuntala. “If this fleet is made up of the forces of many System Lords?”

“Then the size of the enemy fleet is impossible to predict,” Ayodhya told her. “Individually, the System Lords would send smaller proportions of their fleets, but in total the number of Ha’taks in service among all of them number at least a thousand.”

“And the Confederate fleet numbers less than a hundred warships,” Soor groaned.

“Just over that,” Ayodhya nodded. “The latest production run of Ha’tak Destroyers was commissioned just before we left Heinessen.”

“‘Ha’tak Destroyers’?” Jack asked.

“Same general class as the Leonidas,” Nekhrun said, taking over from Ayodhya. “Designed to do exactly what the description says: destroy Ha’tak-type ships. And those thousand or so Ha’taks are spread across most of the galaxy, General. It’ll take months, perhaps years, to get them all into the same place. If we can deal with whatever Heru-ur had gathered then we’ll have time to reinforce our defences. This is going to be a long war though.”

.oOo.

“Any further questions?” Ayodhya asked after an hour of conversation that had basically retrod the ground established already: that the Confederacy was overall rather badly outnumbered but in the short term probably had local superiority and that while the initial retaliation by the Goa’uld would likely fall on Angrezi, reinforcements were on their way. “No? Excellent. In that case, I suggest we all get some rest and then start putting the defences on the Stargate in order. Colonel O’Neill, if you and your team could remain behind for a moment.” It was not a question.

Jack slouched deeper into his chair as the room’s other occupants filed out.

“I’m having a complete list of our casualties compiled,” Ayodhya told them coldly. “When the Stargate is secured sufficiently to be reactivated, you can take it with you. In the spirit of interstellar amity I request that you give it to the Tok’ra. .”

“We’ll tell them that,” Jack agreed. “I’ve got a few questions for them about that themselves.”

“Good.” Ayodhya turned away from them and towards the windows but then paused as he saw a book resting on one of the side tables. The same book that he’d been reading to the children a week ago when SG-1 had first come aboard the Leonidas. Walking over to the table he picked it up and started flipping through the pages, his eyes lighting up as the Goa’uld took over. “Colonel O’Neill, are you at all familiar with the Battle of Thermopylae?”

“Yeah,” Jack admitted. “It’s covered at the Academy.”

“I know that this isn’t a very accurate depiction of the historical battle,” Nekhrun said, showing him the cover. It was from Earth, Jack realised. He’d seen it on bookshop shelves a few times, the title 300 and a bronze helmet dominating the cover. “But it’s probably the definitive version of the legend. And now I find myself at the Hot Gates myself and I wonder if there is a Ephialtes at my back, or Ephors waiting on Heinessen.”

“I do not know this battle,” Teal’c observed. “However, I know the fear in your eyes.”

Nekhrun choked – and then burst into racking laughter. “Perhaps you are right,” he admitted. “Here.” He closed the book and offered it to Teal’c. “Take it as a gift. From one warrior to another.” Still laughing, he walked out of the observation room, leaving Teal’c holding the book and Sam and Daniel staring after him.

“What was that about?” Daniel asked in concern.

“I don’t think it’s anything bad,” Jack said slowly. “You should read the book, Teal’c. I think you’ll enjoy it.”

Then he walked over to the window and stared at the space around them, the five other ships positioned around the Leonidas. “Star destroyers against Ha’tak and X-Wings against Death Gliders, Goa’uld on both sides… this is going to be one wild fight.”

Teal’c frowned at him and then opened the book at the beginning, smiling slightly as he saw the artwork inside it.


	7. Chapter Six

Almost an hour later the door opened and Jack, Daniel and Sam looked up from the game of poker they were playing with cards that Jack had brought with him to see Shakuntala in the doorway, still wearing the crimson and black uniform of an Angrezi colonel and a turban.

“I hate to interrupt your victory celebration,” she told them with somewhat less that total sincerity. “But my father would like to meet you.”

“The Padishah?” Jack asked in surprise.

“Well you did suggest that you wanted to open diplomatic channels,” she pointed out. “Going into a war, I believe that we might find having another friendly power quite helpful. I think he has some sort of treaty in mind, perhaps the exchange of ambassadors – the usual. Or are you no longer interested?”

“I didn’t say that,” Jack said, throwing down his cards. “It was a lousy hand anyway.”

“You understand that anything we agree to can’t be ratified until our government has looked it over?” Daniel asked, rising to his feet. “Which is going to have to wait until we can go through the Stargate.”

“Of course,” Shakuntala said indignantly as they walked out the door towards the ring transporters. “I’m not a child, Doctor Jackson. My father made a point of making sure that I was well aware of the constraints of interstellar diplomacy.”

“Do you have any idea what the Padishah will be looking for in the treaty?” Sam asked.

“Probably some sort of trade arrangement,” advised Shakuntala. “We will have to rebuild almost every part of our military industries in the immediate future, not to mention expand our planetary defences exponentially. Anything we can do to offset that cost by bringing in revenue will be something of a priority – Lady Nekhrun recommended that we look for something we can trade on to the rest of the Confederacy to bring in currency from them.”

.oOo.

“Colonel O’Neill,” Hammond’s voice crackled over the radio. “Is there a problem? You’re rather overdue.”

“You could say that, sir,” Jack said, looking in the direction of the Stargate, which was currently surrounded by thousands of Angrezi military engineers working on the foundations of the fortress that was being established to control access to and, more importantly, access through the Stargate. “The Angrezi came under attack by Heru-ur right in the middle of the reception. According to Heru-ur he was working from information provided to him by the Tok’ra so either they have a huge security breach, or they’re a serious threat to our own security.”

“What’s the situation,” Hammond asked, his voice concerned.

“The Angrezi were able to repel the attack, sir,” Jack replied. “With help from the Confederacy. They’re royally pissed though, mostly at the Tok’ra, but since they found out about the Angrezi from us…”

“That’s not good, Colonel. Are your team alright?”

“We’re good, sir,” confirmed Jack. “There is some good news though. We have a draft treaty with the Angrezi Padishah to purchase the designs for some of their military hardware and exchange ambassadors. And we, uh, acquired a Tel’tac from Heru-ur and as far as the Angrezi are concerned it’s a matter of finders keepers.”

“That’s good news,” Hammond affirmed. “So will you be returning to Earth aboard it?”

“That’s the plan, sir,” Jack agreed. “As a gesture of his good will, we were able to persuade the Padishah to release Maybourne’s team to us while he was still happy over beating the stuffing out of the Jaffa invasion force. However, he’s going to keep the Stargate sealed for a while until he’s sure that it’s secure against another invasion.”

“Excellent!” the General said in a congratulatory tone. “That will leave Maybourne as the only remaining loose end and with the Goa’uld fighting the other System Lords he’s not likely to be a problem.”

“Ah,” Jack said warningly. “Actually there’s one more thing, sir.”

Hammond paused. “Why do I suspect that this isn’t going to be good news, Colonel?”

“Well it could be good news,” Jack said honestly. “You see, Nekhrun heard we might be sending an ambassador so he’s pulled together the diplomatic staff that were here for the reception and hammered out another treaty package to offer in parallel.”

“Well?” Hammond asked when Jack seemed reluctant to continue.

“Well, if we sign this treaty I can see about three likely outcomes, General. Either we get sucked into the war brewing against the System Lords, we wind up a Protectorate World with the Confederacy guaranteeing our independence until we can do so ourselves… or we wind up as part of the Confederacy. And with what he’s offering it might just be worth it.”

“I don’t think that Congress is about to sign off on trading our independence for protection, Jack,” Hammond said.

“Full access to their military technology including teams of technical advisors to help us build orbital defence platforms and spaceships. We’d probably have to redesign the ships a bit to avoid lawsuits -”

“Lawsuits?” interrupted Hammond.

“Did I mention that the ships we’ve seen come straight out of Star Wars?” Jack asked. “Apparently he saw the film during a covert visit to Earth and liked it so much that he described the ships to his engineers when they started designing capital ships and they liked the ideas. I’m surprised he doesn’t walk around in a Darth Vader costume.”

“I’m not sure that I want to follow that line of thought to its natural conclusion,” Hammond decided. “So what do the Angrezi want for their more modest treaty proposals?”

“They want us to buy some of their military surplus when they upgrade to the Confederacy’s standards over the next few years, how much is negotiable although I suspect we can pick up some of the manufacturing gear for it as well. And as part of the trade they want to buy books and other cultural goods that they can sell on to the Confederacy.”

“Cultural goods?” Hammond snorted. “That sounds like the rugs and whatnot that my in-laws brought back from their holiday in Mexico.”

“That might not be far off, sir. We’re a long way from the Confederacy and if their claims are true then their standard of living is at least as good as ours.”

.oOo.

“Are you sure that this is okay?” Daniel asked Jack, watching the Tel’tac lift off and skim a few hundred metres along the runway of an Angrezi airbase.

Jack shrugged. “Well we need to make sure that it’s working okay after we dropped all those rocks on top of it,” he pointed out, “So we’d have to make a few test flights anyway.”

“Somehow I don’t think that the Air Force usually uses ‘test flights’ to coach members of friendly but not formally allied nations to fly captured spacecraft.”

“Only because we don’t have enough captured spacecraft,” Jack insisted. “Besides, the Padishah’s piloting corps took a bit of a beating in the battle. This gives them a bit of a boost.”

“Are you sure that it isn’t because they agreed to let you have one of their slots for retraining on an X-Wing?” asked Daniel sceptically. While none of the Confederacy’s heavy warships had arrived yet, a freighter had stopped to unload the first shipment of the fighter-bombers for the Angrezi’s ground-based wings.

“They aren’t letting me have one of the slots,” Jack replied. “I got two, one for me and one for Carter.”

Daniel muttered something that sounded like ‘boys and their toys’ but surely Jack must have misheard him. “You do realise that if one of them crashes the Tel’tac then we’ll be off everyone’s Christmas list this year?”

The Tel’tac lurched rather alarmingly as he spoke and Jack hissed, gesturing towards Daniel as if to ward off evil. “Daniel, stop tempting fate. Besides, it’s an X-Wing. General Hammond would understand.” The Tel’tac lurched again before steadying out. “It’ll be okay,” Jack said in relief.

“I hope you’re right,” Daniel told him. “Because unless the Padishah decides that the Stargate is safe to use for something other than radio messages it’s going to be a long walk back to Earth.”

.oOo.

The room that they were gathered in was almost, but not quite as splendid as their usual surroundings. They all took pains to ostensibly ignore any lacks while discreetly enough to be noticed sneering at them, pretending that they could do better than their host under the same circumstances.

It was the host who spoke first. “It becomes clear that Heru-ur has failed,” he decreed. “It is entirely probable that he is dead, or if not has been captured.”

“Surely if he survived he would have escaped to advise us of the circumstances,” one of his carefully primed mouthpieces added.

“It was rash of him to lead the attack himself,” the host concluded, setting aside the memory of the careful prodding that had provoked Heru-ur’s decision. “However, this proves that Nekhrun is even more of a threat than we believed. Nor can there be any doubt of why he has chosen this moment. He believes that we are divided, that we are weak.”

“It is time to remind him that he ran like a dog before our wrath,” another declared.

Not one of the host’s agents. Good, he decided. “Indeed, it is time. But this glory should not belong to one of us. It must belong to all of us, so that all can see the fate of those who turn against us.” Apophis’ smile was that of a serpent about to strike. “Let Nekhrun gather his strength only to find how short it falls when compared to the combined might of the System Lords!”

.oOo.

It would be nice to say that the X-wing – technically the Confederated Free Systems Fleet designated them as the SF-3(H) Jäger but only pencil pushers called them that – handled like a dream. Actually, Jack noted, it was a balky brute of a fighter that needed all the spacing of the four engines to turn as sharply as it needed to.

“No offence,” he mentioned as the training squadron of twelve X-Wings came out of the steep vertical climb that had lifted them out of the atmosphere of Angrezi, “But I’ve flown Death Gliders and in a dogfight those crates will be all over the six of an X-Wing in nothing flat.”

“Six?” asked the instructor pilot, who was flying as Green One.

“Behind, outside the gun arcs,” Sam clarified.

“Ah,” Green One nodded. “Yes, that’s pretty much what happened the one time that Death Gliders and X-Wings did mix it up for real. Didn’t do them very much good though.”

“Didn’t do much good?” Jack asked in surprise.

“X-Wings aren’t supposed to mix it up with Death Gliders, Colonel,” Green One explained. “Think about it, you’re piloting a craft equipped with four energy cannon at least three times as large as those of a Death Glider as well as an internal munitions bay. Does that description sound like an interceptor?”

“No,” Jack agreed. “I understand that the main role of the X-Wings is targeting warships that won’t be able to out manoeuvre them, but they’ll still need to get past Death Gliders to do so. And someone has to keep the Goa’uld from using their Alkesh to swarm over your own capital ships.”

“I believe that that is my cue,” another voice said, breaking onto the squadron channel. It took Jack a moment to recognise the voice as belonging to Captain Knaak, the commander of one of the Confederacy warships – presumably the nearest of the six ships since it was angling towards them.

“I believe that it is,” Green One agreed. “Ladies and gentlemen, for today’s training we’ll be running a simulated attack on the carrier Sparta. In order to keep things somewhat fair, she will only be protected by her interceptor wing, who should be launching right about now.”

The moment that he said ‘now’, the side of the Sparta seemed to explode like a broadside from one of the old sailing warships that Jack had seen in old swashbuckler movies – line after line of fire blazing away from the flank and it took Jack a moment to realise that what had been launched weren’t missiles, they were more fighters – smaller than the X-Wings although with a similar long nose and three engines behind the cockpit and three short stubby wings, one rising as a dorsal fin, the other two angled downwards – and were launching on full afterburners. No, not afterburners, he realised as he recognised the design. Turbo boost.

“Vipers?” Jack exclaimed. “From a Star Destroyer?”

“Ah, I have a message from Lord Nekhrun for Colonel O’Neill,” Captain Knaak advised. “He said to tell you, ‘Don’t be a canon-nazi, Colonel’. I hope that that means something to you?”

“That he’s got a smart mouth,” Jack groused.

“You hadn’t already noticed that, sir?” Sam asked innocently.

“More properly,” Green One said in a lecturing tone, “What are approaching us are officially described as the I-2(E) Sternhund, the Confederacy’s current model of interceptor. But as Colonel O’Neill has pointed out, anyone who doesn’t have ink running through their bloodstream knows to call them Vipers. The standard practise is for the Vipers to clear the sky of Death Gliders and Alkesh while X-Wings deal with larger targets. For today, however, they’ll be working to keep us from attacking the Sparta. Are there any questions?”

“Rules of engagement?” Jack asked.

“No close passes,” Green One advised. “Your systems are set to simulate weapons fire as in the previous runs, but a collision would seriously damage an X-Wing and more than likely kill the pilot of a Viper. All your proximity sensors are set to fire retros automatically if you pass within ten metres of someone but that won’t do more than moderate a collision if you’re moving too fast so stay aware. If the simulation programme logs you as disabled or destroyed then it won’t register any shots you take, but it will unlock any restrictions caused by simulated damage and you should immediately withdraw and form up more or less where we are now. Alright, check in in descending order.”

“Green Twelve, weapons safe, all systems green,” the first pilot confirmed.

Jack listened to the repetition of the phrases, checking his own boards. All the LEDs on his primary status panel were green but he had the damage control computer run a separate check before snapping the weapons controls to active and back to safe, seeing the reports confirm that the locks had functioned smoothly. “Green Seven, weapons are safe and all systems are in the green.”

Sam, who was flying as Green Six, repeated the words again and the ritual confirmation went on down the line until the instructor reported that Green One had his own weapons safed and all systems were green.

“Right then,” the man said with a smile. “Since our valiant opponents confirm that they are also ready, let’s go score ourselves a Carrier.”

The X-Wings peeled off, Jack holding his position on Sam’s wing. “Any idea on how to get past that crowd?” Jack asked, referring to the Vipers, which had split into three squadrons but otherwise seemed content to just stay between the X-Wings and their target.

“Let’s try a straight run through them,” she proposed.

“Sounds good,” agreed Jack. “The major turrets are either side of the command tower. You go along the starboard side and I’ll take port.”

“Understood.” Sam brought her X-Wing into line for the proposed run, Jack moving out a little to leave enough space. “On three?”

“Three,” Jack said promptly, shifting his thumb from the trigger on his control stick to the turbo and accelerating rapidly ahead of Sam, engines blazing.

“Jack!” she shouted in annoyance and followed suit, blazing after him towards the Vipers and the mass of the Sparta behind them.

The Vipers, it would appear, had a plan in place for this exact contingency and at least six brought their noses around and opened fire with the cannon that were mounted at their wing roots. The damn things fired a lot faster than the heavier models on the wingtips of Jack’s ride and he had to throw a little weave into his course just to evade them. Unfortunately, this slowed him down just a bit more than he really wanted too…

And the next minute the X-Wing was at the centre of a shooting gallery as the Vipers adjusted for the his reduced speed and hammered his shields viciously low by bombarding them from what felt like every angle and try as he could he couldn’t get loose from more than one or two at a time.

“And that, my fellow pilots,” Green One noted idly from where his own X-Wing was casually staying a good distance back, “Is classic mistake number one for a green X-Wing pilot.”

Jack’s sensor board went red as his shields failed and the computer advised him that the cockpit had been struck by three simulated plasma bolts that would, if real, have reduced his body to its component atoms in roughly a microsecond. With a humph, he pulled up and headed back to the rendezvous point.

“Never,” Green One commented, “never, try to break another fighter’s lock by manoeuvre in an X-Wing. Would anyone care to guess what the real solution here is?”

The Vipers scattered as Sam blazed forwards, hammering one of them with her own cannon when it didn’t get far enough out of the way for her liking. The dart-like little craft died in a (simulated) explosion as she bored in on the Star Destroyer and the return fire from the Vipers failed to break down her shields before she was clear of them. Rather than try for a stern chase they backed off to watch the rest of the X-Wings, leaving her to the tender mercies of the Viper squadron closest to the Sparta, which were moving to intercept.

“The Vipers can generate one hell of a lot of flak,” Green One commented to anyone who was listening. “However, unless they are right on your tail they will have a lot of trouble keeping that flack on you when you’re moving fast and if they can’t keep you under constant pressure then the shields on an X-Wing can take the beating for quite a while. A minute, at least. And when you’re on turbo you can cross a lot of ground in a minute.”

Sam’s X-Wing all but lit up on the scopes as almost every single component on the damage board went red. As far as she could tell, something had just simulated punching straight from the nose of the fighter to the rear end with a diameter of effect large enough to have taken out all four engines.

“Which won’t help you if the ship you’re heading for has a golden BB loaded in it’s main turrets,” Green One said after a moment, his voice slightly betraying his surprise. “Try not to get into the main arc, Green Six. You just took a square hit from a gun that outmasses your entire fighter.

.oOo.

“Did you have fun?” Daniel asked the two Air Force officers as they emerged from the air base locker rooms, freshly showered and back in comfortable BDUs.

“Apart from the number of times we got blasted out of the sky,” Jack said, “yes, tons of fun. You should have come along, Daniel.”

“I’m not a pilot, Jack. I think I can live without flying an X-Wing.”

“Your loss,” Jack said with a shrug. “Hey, Teal’c, buddy. How are you doing?”

“I am well, O’Neill,” the Jaffa said, frowning down at the book he was reading, the same book that Nekhrun had presented him with two days before. “This book is from Earth?”

“Yeah, I think the guy who did it wrote some of the Batman comics,” Jack told him. “Why, you like it?”

Teal’c’s eyes were lit with something almost like religious fervour. “I must obtain more of these books, O’Neill.”

“More?” asked Jack. “I guess the guy’s written some more books.”

“No, more of this book,” Teal’c insisted. “Many copies.”

“How many copies of the same book will you read, Teal’c?” Sam asked.

“For the other Jaffa?” Daniel asked, a step or two ahead of the others. Then again, he had spent a fair bit of the afternoon clarifying the historical background to the Battle of the Hot Gates to Teal’c so he had a little more in the way of an idea where the big Jaffa was going.

“Indeed, DanielJackson,” Teal’c agreed. “This is a most inspirational story. I shall read it to Rya’c soon. Master Bra’tac will also wish to hear it.”

“It’s that good?” Jack asked dubiously.

“It is the story of a King who fancied himself a God and possessed a large and powerful army,” Teal’c explained. “And of how a few brave men defied him and inspired an army to rise up and defeat him.”

“I guess I can see how that would be relevant,” Sam agreed. “Interesting that Nekhrun would give it to you.”

Teal’c frowned. “He is Goa’uld,” he said almost uncertainly. “But he does not behave as a Goa’uld… he.” Then he broke off and leafed through the book. “Does this mean what I believe that it means, DanielJackson.”

“‘Imagine what horrible fate awaits my enemies when I would gladly kill any of my own men for victory’,” Daniel read the words of Xerxes. “I could almost hear Apophis saying something like that.”

“And Leonidas’ response?” Teal’c asked.

“‘And I would die for any of mine’,” Daniel read. “You think…?”

“What, you think Nekhrun, a Goa’uld who admits himself that the Confederacy is a power play on his part, is making some sort of heroic sacrifice here?” Jack asked.

Teal’c didn’t reply but Daniel did. “Don’t underestimate the power of a myth, Jack. This story obviously carries a lot of weight with the Confederacy – for that matter, see what an impact it’s having on Teal’c - and Nekhrun seems to think about it a lot. Look at the names of his ships: Leonidas, Sparta… and the parallels here. A narrow place, the one planet where the System Lords can strike at him. He’s outnumbered, his enemies consider themselves Gods and encourage superstition. It’s not impossible that he really does buy into this.”

“That would be insane,” Jack disagreed. “He’s a Goa’uld, you know how powerful that ancestral memory of theirs is.”

“Powerful enough to override eight thousand years of life, Jack? Most of the Goa’uld have spent eons pretty much doing the same things, Nekhrun’s been doing things that they probably can’t even imagine. I’m no psychologist but I don’t think anyone could predict how complicated that must make the insides of his head.”

“Oh great, you think he’s insane?” Jack asked.

“Maybe not insane,” Daniel temporised, “But certainly more than a little obsessive, and believe me as an archaeologist I’ve seen that happen more than once. If he’s latching onto this then who knows where it could lead him to?”

“Okay, so there’s a serious unbalanced Goa’uld with a fleet right out of Star Wars,” Jack said and shook his head. “Great, and I thought I was joking about the Darth Vader costume. I think that would be an improvement over the possibility that he’ll try to face off against the Goa’uld wearing a loincloth and a cape.”

.oOo.

The Tok’ra High Council was not without a history of acrimony as its members discussed the various options available to them in their eons long struggle against the tyranny of Ra and the other System Lords.

There was, however, absolutely no precedent for Selmak, returning to the chamber after having received a communication from his current host’s homeworld, hauling Delek up from his chair and slamming the other Councillor up against the wall. A moment later, the former Air Force general brought his knee up sharply, striking the younger host slightly above the pelvis, eliciting a whoop of pain from the other man.

“Out of a slight concern for your host,” Jacob Carter hissed to the other Tok’ra, “I didn’t just end his future chances of siring children. You fucking imbecile. How long have you been in Heru-ur’s pocket?”

“Selmak!” Aldwin protested. “What are you talking about! Release Delek immediately.”

“Not a fucking chance,” Jacob snarled. “I just got a message from George Hammond. You may remember that Anise and I met him recently, regarding the long missing Nekhrun.”

“It would be hard to forget,” Anise growled. “But what has this got to do with Delek?”

“Everything,” he growled. “SG-1 went back for a follow up meeting a few days. While they were there, the planet came under attack by Heru-ur and thousands of Jaffa.”

Aldwin sighed. “Another human civilisation snuffed out by the System Lords,” he said bitterly. “I hope at least that SG-1 were able to escape?”

“Escape?” Jacob snorted. “They kicked Heru-ur’s ass, captured him and the Confederated Free Systems kicked the Jaffa off Angrezi, which looks likely to be only the first battle in what’s going to be a very savage war between them and the System Lords.”

“They… won?” Anise gasped. “That bitch defeated one of the System Lords in open battle?”

“They won,” confirmed Jacob, “And apparently Heru-ur let slip a few details about how he came to find Angrezi, a civilisation that none of the System Lords knew anything about but that we had learned of less than a week before the attack.”

“What are you saying?” Aldwin asked. “That Delek shared the information with Heru-ur? The Council never authorised such a disclosure.”

“Heru-ur named Delek specifically,” Jacob told them, releasing the still gasping Delek to fall the floor. “Apparently some sort of deal involving Egeria. I also have several messages to relay,” he added looking down at the fallen Councillor. “Heru-ur said to tell you that Egeria will suffer for your crimes against him, Delek. Now I was rather under the impression that she was long dead. Do you have anything that you want to tell us? Or should I move right on to persuading you to tell us the dirty little secrets that you’ve been hiding?”

The tears in Delek’s eyes were not a result of the injury. “No…” he whispered. “Damn him… damn them both…”

“Delek,” Aldwin said firmly. “Tell us what you have done.”

Delek sighed. “Egeria is alive,” he confessed. “Ra didn’t kill her, he sealed her away in a remote tomb. Heru-ur was the only one that Ra entrusted with the location. He offered to share the information with me and not reveal my allegiances to Ra in return for information on the other System Lords.”

“You fool,” Selmak said coldly. “Even if he wasn’t lying, Egeria would never have wished for one of the Tok’ra to become a servant of the System Lords.”

“Dammit, Selmak! Don’t get self-righteous with me!” Delek snapped. “We’re losing, can’t you see that? Every time one of the System Lords is brought down, another Goa’uld simply replaces them. But where are the new Tok’ra? Without Egeria we can’t replace our number and year after year, century after century, our own casualties are sapping our strength.”

“How do you even know Heru-ur was telling the truth?” Aldwin challenged him. “You know that he would not hesitate to betray you.”

“He showed me her,” revealed Delek stubbornly. “He took me through a Stargate and showed me the very jar. In return for Nekhrun’s location he swore to reveal the gate codes to me.”

“And you believed him?”

“He gave me the first two codes,” Delek protested. “What does it matter what happens to Nekhrun? Is this anything that we haven’t done before, revealing one Goa’uld’s weakness to another in order to thin their ranks?”

“Never without the full knowledge and consent of the High Council,” Aldwin reminded him.

“And never when it would bring the wrath of both System Lords down upon us!” Jacob snapped. “You utter fool. Do you have any idea how dangerous Nekhrun is? She squashed Heru-ur like a fly and she knows perfectly well that we are the ones who revealed her location. She sent a message through Stargate Command for the High Council as well.”

Anise sneered. “Do you really think that anyone cares what that malignant cow has to say for herself?” she spat.

“I think we damn well should care,” Jacob answered. “She says that as far as she is concerned we are responsible for every death among the soldiers who fought the Jaffa and she demands that we explain ourselves. If we don’t… well if the Confederacy wins, which I admit I don’t think is very likely, then they’ll hunt us down like dogs.”

“As if that’s any different from how the Goa’uld treat us?” Garshaw snorted.

Jacob shook his head. “How long would the Tok’ra have lasted without the support of human communities?” he asked rhetorically. “Not long. And if the Confederacy wins then they won’t oppress the System Lords slaves. They’ll liberate them, and tell them of all the times we’ve had to abandoned humans to face the wrath of System Lords that are hunting us. It would seem that that’s where those communities that Nekhrun swept off wound up, indoctrinated until there are entire societies that see us as nothing but those who used them and then threw them aside.”

.oOo.

The Angrezi star system was relatively small, with only two terrestrial planets besides Angrezi and a single huge gas giant further out from the sun. It was not large enough to have hidden the sudden arrival of even one starship from the watchful eyes of the Confederated Free Systems Fleet now that they had been alerted. Not that the System Lords were particularly trying.

“Multiple hyperspace windows opening,” reported a sensor operator on the bridge of the Leonidas. “Location is twenty million miles insystem of Angrezi, one point three million miles above the ecliptic plane.”

“How many?” Fumizuki asked.

“More than twenty,” the young woman reported. “And they’re still coming.”

Fumizuki nodded. “Sound general quarters.”

A deep booming sound filled the compartment as the General Quarters alarm, modelled on a very large gong, sounded. Everywhere aboard the powerful ship and her smaller cohorts, bulkheads slammed closed crew scrambled for their battle stations.

“Situation?” Ayodhya asked, bursting into the bridge, fingers still working to close up the flies of his trousers.

Fumizuki tactfully didn’t look back. Basantapurian culture, even muted by several generations on Heinessen, was considerably less body-shy than that of the Captain’s native Fukuoka. “A large force is exiting Hyperspace at a range of roughly twenty-six million miles. In excess of twenty vessels.”

“Past forty, sir,” the sensor operator advised.

“Damn,” the Admiral noted. “That son of a bitch Heru-ur managed to drag along an alliance. What’s the status of the Onyx Ghost?” he added, in reference to the freighter that had delivered the Angrezi’s new fighters.

“Departed on schedule three hours ago,” Fumizuki reported. “The Dilios flew back and forth across the point of departure, which should muddle any hyperspace traces they might be able to get after all this time.”

“I realise that it was never very likely,” Ayodhya agreed. “But then again, I hadn’t thought that Heru-ur would have a new twist on a ring transporter either and cold as it is, I’d rather that the System Lords don’t have anywhere else that they know of to attack us for the moment.”

“The Angrezi are tough people,” Fumizuki said.

Ayodhya shook his head. “They haven’t had a war in a hundred years. That skirmish over the Stargate wasn’t enough to blood them seriously. This will be the real test.” He shrugged. “Well, the dice are thrown and all that.”

A tactical display lit up. “They’ve stopped coming, sir. Final count is sixty-two ships, power signatures all flag them as Ha’tak-class ships. I don’t recognise the formation but they’re heading this way, estimated time of arrival is in twenty-eight minutes.”

“Show me the formation,” Ayodhya ordered. A holographic image, each ship nothing more than a pin-prick, appeared in front of him and he gave a short laugh. “That’s no formation – that’s every blasted one of those damn fools bunching their own ships together and trying not to get too far into their ‘ally’s’ firing arcs.”

“The Tau’ri’s captured Tel’tac is approaching, sir,” the flight officer observed. Without any fighters out at the moment, he had been relegated to local traffic control.

“What do they want?”

“To come aboard, apparently.”

“It would seem to be your day for meeting people,” Fumizuki observed.

“You’ve got a smart mouth, captain,” Nekhrun observed, taking over from the Admiral. “Sario was wise to choose you as his flag captain. Since the Tel’tac has a ring transporter, let the Tau’ri come aboard.”

The operations officer saluted and then touched his headset, murmuring commands. “They’re aboard, sir.”

“Interesting,” Nekhrun mused, watching as the Tel’tac wheeled and suddenly headed out of the system. In a flash of light it disappeared, entering Hyperspace in what, off hand, he would have thought to be the direction of Earth. “Looks like their ride deserted them.”

“Not quite,” Jack said, walking onto the bridge, followed by the rest of SG-1. “I told the guys on Maybourne’s team to take it back to Earth and make contact with Stargate Command.”

“And you’re sure that they won’t say, take off and start plundering other helpless planets?” Nekhrun asked sceptically.

“I’m reasonably sure that they won’t be able to navigate to any helpless planets,” Jack explained. “Carter had to set up the hyperspace route for them to get back to Earth.”

The Goa’uld shrugged his shoulders as if to emphasise that those hapless individuals were no longer his problem. “And so you decided to come here and keep me company? I knew I had a winning personality but don’t you think that you might be taking matters to extremes?”

“Very funny,” Jack told him and looked at the display of ships. “That’s a lot of ships. Friends of yours?”

Nekhrun snorted. “No, Colonel O’Neill. Like any of you, I can choose my friends but I am given no choice when it comes to my family. Those are the combined forces of... my goodness, I hadn’t realised I’d upset quite so many of the System Lords. I do believe that that’s some of Heru-ur’s ships there, trailing behind Apophis’ little fleet… Moloc, Ares… Morrigan and Cronus… Hathor? What did I ever do to her? And what damp rock did she crawl out from under? I haven’t heard a whisper of her for twenty centuries…”

Jack raised his hand somewhat sheepishly. Hathor wasn’t one of his proudest memories.

“I should have known,” Nekhrun sighed. “In any event, it would appear that the Heru-ur shared his discovery of my survival with quite a number of my old adversaries and now they have come to destroy me.”

“Can you stop them?” Daniel asked.

“With six ships?” the renegade Goa’uld asked incredulously. “Not unless they do something truly stupid… of course, we are talking about my idiot siblings for the most part so that’s entirely possible.”

“Is there any likelihood of reinforcements arriving?” Jack asked.

“Not in the immediate future,” Nekhrun admitted. “If everything went completely to plan then the first of the strike forces from Operation Mount Niitaka will be just finishing up their strikes, which means that they can’t get here for at least another day.”

“Do you think you can drag out the battle that long?” Sam asked, eyeing the advancing mob of ships. Death Gliders and Alkesh were beginning to spill from their hangers. There were a great many of them.

“There are a lot of variables,” the Goa’uld shrugged. “If I can sting them badly enough then possibly. But I don’t want to bloody them enough to make them run. It’ll be a tough balance to manage.”

“You don’t want them to run?” Daniel asked.

“No,” Nekhrun said, eyeing the little diagram that floated in front of his command chair. “I want them here. I want all of them here. I want to pin them against Angrezi and when the reinforcements arrive I want to grind them to dust and leave the System Lords short several of their most bloodthirsty fellows and the cream of a dozen fleets. And that won’t happen if they run away from me.”

.oOo.

The Ha’tak were straggling as they closed towards Angrezi, the individual flotillas of each System Lords moving with little co-ordination between each other. They all seemed to have the same general plan however, which meant that they were all moving directly towards Angrezi and the little battle group of ships that protected the planet.

“That’s interesting,” Nekhrun noted as he saw the ships hold to the same course. “Normally I’d expect them to spread out to prevent me from leaving, which would of course give me the chance to pick them off a few at a time. Instead they’re threatening the planet. That’s cleverer than normal – if I abandon Angrezi after swearing to defend it then at best they’d give the Confederacy short shrift in the future.”

“You think that there’s one person in charge of that mess?” Sam asked.

Nekhrun nodded. “They’re moving in the same direction, Captain, which at least means that someone is herding them. Expecting them to form an effective formation would be like wishing for the moon on a piece of string. Still, if they want to close in with Angrezi then I’ll let them. It’ll bring the orbital defences into play which will help a little.”

“Sir,” the operations officer advised. “We’re receiving a transmission from the incoming fleet.”

“Oh?” asked Nekhrun. “What do they have to say for themselves?”

The operator paused and frowned. “We’ve been invited to ‘surrender and die’, Admiral.”

“Isn’t that supposed to be surrender or die?” Daniel enquired.

Nekhrun, Teal’c and most of the bridge crew gave the archaeologist amused looks. “No…” Nekhrun said slowly. “Knowing my kind, I’m reasonably sure that they said what they meant to.”

Sam rolled her eyes. “How very Klingon.” Now it was Jack’s turn to direct an amused look at Sam. “What? I’m just trying to get into the spirit of things.”

“I suppose it would only be polite to say hello,” Nekhrun sighed. “Put the no doubt infantile ranting onto the speakers Ensign.”

“…the wrath of the gods! Grovel before us and beg for our mercy! Surrender the vile Nekhrun or suffer the consequences…” demanded a familiar voice. “Our Jaffa are without number…”

“He only thinks that because he can’t count past ten without taking his shoes off,” Nekhrun commented to Jack, who smirked.

“Our ships shall blot out the very light of this star,” declared Apophis.

“Honestly, he couldn’t have set up a better straight line if he’d been reading from a script.”

Teal’c nodded his agreement and then raised an eyebrow.

“By my guest,” the Goa’uld agreed and stepped back, gesturing for the operations officer to transmit Teal’c’s words.

“Then we shall fight in the shade,” Teal’c declared.

“HUA!” shouted the crew on the bridge, Nekhrun as loudly as anyone.

There was an astonished silence from the Goa’uld and then: “Shol’va!” Apophis screamed in fury. “You dare to defy me! You dare to stand with even the treacherous Nekhrun!? I will see you suffer for an eternity for this temerity!”

“Goodness, do you think he recognises you?” Nekhrun asked. “Why hello, Apophis, were you saying something?” he added. 

The Goa’uld was all but incoherent with rage. “Enough!” he managed to shout. “There will be no mercy, no quarter. Burn those pathetic excuses for warships from the sky and this filthy planet to the ground.”

“Well that should put paid to any thoughts of surrender,” concluded Nekhrun, ordering the communications channel cut off with a slashing gesture across his throat. “Now, let me see… how stupid can Apophis be…”

A sizeable force of Ha’tak began to pull ahead of the formation. Twelve, thirteen… fourteen ships almost a quarter of the assembled force.

“Pretty stupid,” Jack agreed. “He’s got to be pushing his engines pretty fast to move that fast.”

“And he’s going to be facing us with only a two to one numerical advantage for at least five minutes,” Fumizuki noted. “That’s extremely promising.”

“Isn’t it…” Nekhrun mused. “I suppose I’d better do something about Mayburn,” he added, using Shakuntala’s mispronunciation of the name. “Get him up here

“Ah, it’s Maybourne actually,” Daniel pointed out.

“But May-Burn suits him so well,” Nekhrun protested. “And it keeps his mind on his prospects, such as they are.”

“What are you going to do with him?”

Nekhrun shrugged. “Is he actually good for anything?”

Jack hesitated. “Well, he is a trained Air Force Officer with a background in special ops. He could probably fly a fighter if you were inclined to trust him.”

“Not on his own,” Nekhrun said after what seemed to be honest consideration.

A moment or two later, Harry Maybourne, somewhat flustered almost scurried onto the bridge under the guard of a pair of von Pinn’s soldiers. Shakuntala sauntered in after him, a mischievous look on her face and a moment later Harjit joined her.

“I knew that I’d have cause to regret the two of you putting your heads together,” Nekhrun complained to the two women. Do I want to know what you were doing to him?”

“Hmm, probably not,” Harjit said, smiling sweetly.

“Jack!” Maybourne said hopefully. “I don’t suppose that you’ve got a handy escape route do you? Or failing that, a suicide capsule.”

“Sorry Harry,” Jack said insincerely. “We’re just finalising selling you to Nekhrun as a harem guard. Of course, there’s some mandatory surgery, but you’re adaptable. I’m sure that you’ll make a wonderful eunuch.”

Maybourne’s eyes went wide for a moment and then he shook his head. “You really had me going for a minute there, Jack. We both know that the US government wouldn’t go along with that.”

“The US government doesn’t have any say in this,” Nekhrun observed. “However, with some reluctance, I’ve decided that you will have a little bit of say.” He held up two fingers quite close together. “Just a little.” He gestured towards the holographic display. “Out there, there is a sizeable Goa’uld fleet. In the next ten minutes or so, they’re going to start shooting at me. Now, you have a choice to make. Choice number one is that I send you back to Angrezi and you can go home to Earth under SG-1’s guard. After that little bit of surgery that Jack mentioned.”

Say what you will about Harry Maybourne, he was a good judge of character. He paled. “And choice number two?”

Nekhrun shrugged. “Jack tells me you can probably fly one of our fighters in a pinch. I don’t think I’d trust you with one though. But if you man the helm, under supervision, then I will consider you to have redeemed yourself – and more importantly, the reputation of your homeworld. The latter, I might add, stands quite tarnished by your misdemeanours.”

“You say that as if I have a choice,” Maybourne muttered. “I’ll fly your damn ship. But can you at least protect me from your women? They’re worse than Afghan widows!”

“I think something can be arranged,” Nekhrun promised with a slight smile and gestured towards the helm.

“What do you think they did to him?” Jack asked as Maybourne went towards the helm and took over the controls, listening to the instructions that the helmsman he was replacing provided as if his life depended upon it. As has been mentioned, he was a good judge of character.

“Colonel,” Nekhrun admitted. “I’m eight thousand years old. I’ve founded civilisations that have reached the stars and I’ve burnt civilisations to the ground. But I must confess that I would rather lead an army of newborn ducklings in an all out offensive against Ra at the height of his power than I would try to predict the workings of those two’s minds when they are bouncing ideas off each other.” Turning, he glanced at the display again. The Death Gliders were beginning to get close. “Launch all fighters. Final warning to all hands.”

A chime rang out in every compartment of every ship in the battle group, alerting them to the message of their commander.

“A new age has begun. An age of freedom from the Goa’uld. Many of us will die to give it birth. Perhaps all of us will die. But we are not men, not ships, not a battle group. Today, we are a dream given form. And dreams…” he paused to emphasize his words. “Dreams never die.”

There was a great silence that filled the ship. Doubt filled Nekhrun’s eyes.

“hua.”

It began as a whisper.

“Hua.”

Then louder.

“Hua!”

Teal’c added his voice to the roar.

“Hua!”

Every voice on every ship raised until everyone, even Harry Maybourne, had joined the chant.

“HUA!”

The shout seemed almost to rock the very ship as Viper after Viper rocketed from the sides of the ships and the forward decks of the carriers opened to reveal rank after rank of X-Wings and Skipray torpedo boats.

“HUA! HUA! HUA!”

And the first shots of the battle were fired…

By the Goa’uld.


	8. Chapter Seven

Apophis’s advance force had broken more or less accidentally into two groups, one of his own seven ships and one of the six ships that still professed loyalty to Heru-ur even if they were actually following the orders of his rival. It was the latter group that was out in the lead and they concentrated their fire at long range on the nearest ship of Ayodhya’s battle-group, the cruiser Astinos.

“Astinos is taking heavy fire,” reported the fleet operations officer from the flag deck at the back of the bridge. As he did so, the cruiser rolled slightly to bring its starboard turrets into play and the double turrets hammered at one of the Ha’tak.

“Take us in,” Nekhrun ordered immediately. “Astinos is to pull back in on us. If we get pulled apart we’ll get swarmed one at a time. Direct the fighters at the second wave, we’ll take Astinos’ dance partners out ship to ship.”

Maybourne brought the Leonidas around and raised the nose before bringing the engines up to full power. The range began to fall quickly as the ships charged towards each other, the two carriers falling in slightly behind the big destroyer while the cruisers ranged ahead to succour their sister ship. The Death Gliders around Heru-ur’s ships pulled away to chase after the formations of X-Wings and Skiprays that were arcing around their formation towards Apophis’ fleet while their Alkesh harried the Astinos, whose shields were under increasing pressure.

There was an explosion aboard the Astinos’ target as the heavy fire it was taking punched through its shields and started to tear through the hull. Another, taking fire from the port turrets seemed to stagger as its shields collapsed for a moment but they flickered back to life almost immediately. One of the Astinos’ turrets disintegrated under the fire of another of the Ha’tak before the ships had to break off to deal with the approaching Dilios and Stelios as the other two cruisers opened fire, each ship now only faced by two Ha’tak.

Almost a dozen Alkesh dived towards the Dilios, intending to make the apparently unguarded cruiser pay for its exposure. They hadn’t reckoned upon the smaller turrets that dotted the cruiser’s hull and flew into a wall of fire that gutted the attack. Only two managed to get close enough to fire and their shots failed to penetrate the Dilios’ shields. A moment later, a flight of Vipers that had been lurking below the Dilios slashed out and came down behind the pair of survivors, blotting them out of the sky.

“The Cruiser Group is holding their own,” the fleet operations officer advised. “Astinos has only moderate damage. But their shields are still being broken down.”

“Show them what a Destroyer can do,” Nekhrun ordered Fumizuki quietly.

The captain nodded and leant forwards on the rail that separated the command dais from the rest of the bridge. “Target the one of the two that are beating up on Stelios. Full alpha strike, all batteries.”

“I wish I was out there,” Jack muttered as the gunners in the tactical sections that ran along the sides of the command deck confirmed their readiness.

“Feel free,” Nekhrun offered. “You know where the ring transporters are and I’m sure that Sparta or Thermopylae has a spare X-Wing or two.”

“Really?” asked Jack in surprise.

“They don’t do me any good sitting in the hanger, Colonel.” He turned to his own staff. “Someone find Colonel O’Neill and – Captain?”

“Count on it,” Sam agreed with an annoyed look in Jack’s direction.

“Two fighters,” Nekhrun confirmed.

Teal’c shook his head when Jack gave him a questioning look. “I will remain with DanielJackson,” he said.

“Target locked,” the tactical officer reported and all eyes went to the display screens that showed the battle unfolding.

Fumizuki nodded. “Fire,” he ordered.

Jack had seen that the Leonidas mounted its primary weapons in turrets to either side of the command tower. There were four turrets on each side and each mounted energy cannon that, like those of a Ha’tak, were essentially scaled up from a staff weapon. However, the turrets of the Leonidas mounted eight such cannon each, firing sequentially such that by the time the last of the eight had fired the first would be fully charged for the next shot. There were secondary weapons as well but they didn’t do much more than light up the shields of the two targeted ships, fractionally reducing the power necessary for the main guns to pierce them.

Four glowing lines of continuous fire linked each flank of the Leonidas to its target for one second, two seconds, three…

Then the unlucky Ha’tak exploded in a fireball that smashed at least half a squadron of Death Gliders that were flying too close.

“Fuck me!” Maybourne exclaimed in shock.

“That can be arranged, Colonel,” Harjit told him from where she had been standing quietly behind him. “But this isn’t the time.” Under other circumstances, Jack would have been laughing at the expression on Maybourne’s face.

“How many Ha’tak would it take to do that to you?” Carter asked Nekhrun.

“In theory, at least five. In practise, multi-ship strikes are hard to co-ordinate like that so closer to eight.”

“Ah,” she said. The math wasn’t hard to work out.

“Coming, Carter?” Jack asked from the door.

“On my way, sir,” she said, but paused by Daniel. “I really suggest that you go down to Angrezi, Daniel.”

“I’ll take care of him, Captain,” Shakuntala offered before Daniel could say anything. “Much as I’d like to stand and fight with the Fleet, father would be mortified if I died heroically before my brothers had a chance to.”

“…right,” Sam agreed uncertainly and followed Jack towards the ring transporter.

“I can take care of myself, you know,” Daniel protested.

“Of course you can,” Shakuntala said brightly. “Would you like a sandwich? I’m sure Harjit could make one for you…”

.oOo.

The Thermopylae was a lot like the Leonidas on the inside, Jack noticed. However, he rather doubted that the larger ship had a flight deck to match that of the carrier. It was almost half a kilometre long and as he had seen earlier, the entire ceiling could be opened for a mass launch. At the moment the deck was depressurised since it would be rather unfortunate to have such a large space venting atmosphere in a battle and he and Sam had to board their fighters in one of the many bays that lined the deck.

“Colonel O’Neill, Captain Carter,” the Thermopylae’s flight operations officer advised over the X-Wing’s radio channel. “For identification purposes you’ve been flagged as Mongoose Flight. Admiral Ayodhya has given you discretion to act on your own initiative so there won’t be a controller assigned to you, just keep your ears open on the general channel – you really wouldn’t want to be between the Leonidas and her targets when she opens fire.”

“Understood,” Jack confirmed as his X-Wing glided forwards onto the left-hand track of the two parallel launch lines painted on the deck. Not quite five hundred metres away at the far end of the flight deck, the angled panel that made up the nose of the Thermopylae lowered to open up a space just wide enough for two fighters to launch side-by side. “Mongoose One is ready to launch.”

“Mongoose Two, ready to launch,” Sam’s voice came over the communications channel and he looked to his right to see her X-Wing sitting in position next to his. Unlike those that had been delivered to the Angrezi, that had been painted with light blue undersides and green and grey upper hulls, these two were flat grey with navy blue stripes along their fuselages.

“Don’t hit your thrusters until you’re out of the ship,” the flight-ops man reminded them. “Mongoose One, you launch on One, Mongoose Two on Zero. Countdown to launch is five, four, three, two, one -” A hammer hit Jack in the back and the X-Wing bolted forwards under the influence of the repellor (‘does the reverse of a tractor beam’ was the only explanation that he’d been given) mounted at the back of the flight deck. “Zero!”

“Yahoo!” Jack shouted as he launched out of the nose of the Thermopylae, Sam only a second behind him.

In the time that it had taken for the two of them to don flight suits and board their X-Wings, Apophis had entered the fight, pitting his own seven ships and the only two survivors of Heru-ur’s against the Confederate ships. That wasn’t enough firepower to seriously threaten the Leonidas and its own heavy point defence combined with that of the two Carriers flanking it was enough to keep them relatively safe but the cruisers were taking a real beating as the Ha’taks tried to keep the smaller ships between them and the Leonidas’ firepower.

As Jack led Sam towards the fight, he saw a squadron of X-Wings plunge through a formation of Death Gliders down upon one of Apophis’ Ha’tak. One of fighter-bombers broke off, one wing missing and an engine blazing briefly after the fire from several Death Gliders punched through the shields. Another, by sheer mischance, hit a Death Glider head on, destroying both fighters. The others fired off their torpedoes into the unlucky ship’s shields, which failed under the force of the missiles’ detonations.

The X-Wings broke and scattered, chased by the Death Gliders and Jack smirked as he saw Vipers closing in to rescue their larger cousins from vengeance. The Ha’tak, for its part, was caught in an immediate crossfire by two of the cruisers, Jack wasn’t sure which ones, that smashed its left flank to splinters.

“I think we’ve got ourselves a target, Carter,” he said, “See if we can put the Ha’tak out of our misery. Lock your S-foils into attack position.”

“Affirmative. I’ve got your wing,” she replied and the wings of the X-Wings split in a manner that millions of cinema-goers would have recognised as she followed him in a razor-straight attack run that would intercept the Ha’tak where it was trying to evade the fire from the cruisers.

Ahead of them, a squadron of Torpedo Boats had had the same idea and as they darted closer to the damaged ship, the Jaffa gunners fired desperately at them with the main cannon, smashing one of them apart. A volley of torpedoes hammered into the engines of the ship, leaving it drifting out of control.

“Target the cannon,” Sam advised.

“Got it,” Jack agreed. “Here we go.”

Just making a straight run at the Ha’tak should have left them as easy prey, but the two of them fired their turbos as they entered range, the sudden increase in speed throwing off the defenders, who also had to suddenly worry about the shots from the X-Wings cannon that punched holes into the outer hull of the Ha’tak. Jack fired his missiles first at the nearer of the two remaining weapons and then Sam hit the last one with two torpedoes before they blew past the crippled and helpless ship.

No one else bothered to do anything about the wreck. As and when the battle ended, it would be a problem for the winner to deal with. Right now they all had more immediate matters at hand.

.oOo.

“Dilios’ shields are failing,” Fumizuki observed on the command deck of the Leonidas. The cruiser had already lost its shields once but managed to restore them, although not before one side had lost all but one turret. Seeing the weakness, two Ha’tak were concentrating their fire on that side and only taking return fire from the two cannon on the last turret. “Captain Venator is evacuating everyone he can spare to the Sparta by ring transporter, but there are still at least three hundred personnel aboard.”

“I know,” Nekhrun said bleakly. “Take us through the line, Colonel Maybourne,” he ordered. “We’ll try rushing the bastard vultures while they’re trying to claw at the carcass.”

“Look!” Daniel exclaimed and pointed at the image of the Dilios on one of the monitors. An explosion had ripped through the lower command tower, taking out half the turrets on her remaining broadside. In its wake fires were raging through the superstructure.

Nekhrun paled. “That’s not good.”

“Venator’s evacuating the engine rooms, sir.” Fumizuki’s words fell across the bridge like a brutal hammer. “He says… Admiral, Captain Venator reports that he will see the honourguard is in order in the next life.”

“What does he mean? What honour guard?” asked Daniel.

“Just watch,” was all Nekhrun said as the engines of the Dilios came to life, firing with all the power that the stricken ship could gather.

The guns of the Dilios were still firing when the proud vessel’s pointed prow smashed through the shields of the hindmost of the Ha’tak and drove into the central pyramid of the ship despite its best efforts to evade.

For a moment the two ships clung together.

And then, briefly, Angrezi was lit by the funeral pyre of a thousand Jaffa, two hundred forty-seven Confederacy naval personnel… and the System Lord Apophis.

.oOo.

“The rest of the System Lords are increasing their pace,” the sensor operator reported urgently. “They’ll be in range within three minutes!”

“Apophis must have been on that ship,” Nekhrun noted. “The damned harpies were hanging back until I’d killed him for them. That’s rather insulting of them.” At that moment the Leonidas opened fire on the two Ha’tak that had been harrying the Dilios. Without the Confederate cruiser to shelter behind, the pair were swiftly speared by the twin broadsides of the destroyer, battering viciously at their shields. The result wasn’t as swift as the initial alpha strike that Fumizuki had carried out, but even so the two ships shields collapsed under the brutal impact, the weapons fire digging deep into their hulls.

“Insulting?” Shakuntala asked.

“They thought that he was more dangerous to them than I am,” Nekhrun pointed out. “That may be tactically advantageous but my ego is bleeding out here. The Tok’ra may claim that they turned against the other Goa’uld for ethical reasons, I just did it because they’re so stupid.”

He turned to the fleet operations. “Have Stelios and Astinos pull back to supporting positions. I don’t want them getting seperated when the main force arrives.” He paused and glanced at the four Ha’tak still in the immediate area. “And please feel free to get rid of those four, any time now.”

A firestorm of firepower swept across four Ha’tak as the cannon of all five surviving Confederacy ships were brought into play. One of the ships exploded as the Leonidas focused upon it, a second started to drift, fires raping its engines after both of the two carriers and the Stelios focused their firepower upon it. The other two scurried back out of range, their surviving Death Gliders joining the swarms approaching from the rest of the fleet.

“They lost eleven ships taking down the Dilios,” Daniel asked quietly. “At this point they have to be wondering if they’d rather go home and start picking off Heru-ur and Apophis’ territory.”

Shakuntala sighed. “That would be truly good. But my home is a rich prize, richer than any ten of the worlds they could scoop up. And Apophis damaged the Stelios and Astinos as well. They still have more than fifty ships, enough to pin the carriers and cruisers with half a dozen ships each and leave more than twenty to take down the Leonidas. Even these ships can’t survive against those sort of numbers.”

“The false gods are sending their Death Gliders forwards,” Teal’c observed.

“Probably want to clear a path for their ships,” theorised Nekhrun. “I don’t know about you, Princess, but I don’t believe that we should accommodate their wishes on this matter.”

Shakuntala smiled, “Speaking on behalf of my father, I believe a warm welcome is in order. May I have your permission to extend such a welcome?”

“Get our fighters clear!” Nekhrun snapped to the fighter control officer and then bowed to Shakuntala. “By all means take the lead, my dear.”

The princess picked up a headset. “Put me through to the Planetary Defence Centre,” she ordered and paused. “Major, this is Lieutenant Colonel the Princess Shakuntala. You should have received notification placing the orbital platforms under the command of Admiral Ayodhya. He now wishes to employ them.” She waited a moment more for authorisation and then nodded. “Thank you major.”

“Angrezi Planetary Defence are removing the final firing locks from their orbital platforms, sir,” one of the gunnery officers reported. “We have fire control and the targeting solutions are locked.”

“Princess Shakuntala,” the Goa’uld said pleasantly. “I do believe that it would be most fitting for you to give the word.”

“Send them to hell,” she snapped.

.oOo.

“What’s Nekhrun up to?” Jack muttered as Mongoose Flight joined the other fighters scrambling away from the incoming mass of Death Gliders. He wasn’t unhappy to be out of the scrum – the X-Wings weren’t the death traps against Death Gliders that they might have been against Vipers but the numbers involved were daunting. “He’s got to be up to something.”

Sam looked at her instruments. “Sir, I’m picking up movement in Angrezi’s lower orbit.”

“He’s sending up reinforcements?” asked Jack.

“No sir, it looks like.” She paused. “Sir, a number of satellites are manuvering.”

“Satellites? What, are we screwing with their TV reception or something?”

“I don’t think these are communication satellites, sir,” Sam warned him. “I really wish I’d had more time to look at these sensor syste-” She broke off suddenly.

“Carter?”

“Sir, I’m getting a radiological readout from the satellites.”

“Radio-logical? Signals from Vulcan?” Jack asked, but he was bringing his X-Wing around to get a closer look at the satellites.

“Nuclear, sir,” she said exasperatedly. “Those satellites are packed with nuclear weapons. And if they’re manuvering…”

“Then they’re about to launch,” Jack agreed. “I wonder how big they are.”

“Not very big,” Sam told him. “Not even as big as the ones used on Hiroshima. But there are an awful lot of them and –They’re launching!”

Despite being the best that the Angrezi had been able to manage without obtaining access to Confederate technology, the missiles being launched didn’t have a lot of reach, not being able to reach far past the high orbit of the current battlefield and maintain acceptable accuracy. They had just enough but, as Sam had noted, there were a very great number of them. In fact, each satellite had been built around four tubes, each containing twelve five-kiloton missiles and once the light propellant charges had boosted one missile free, a second would be only a few seconds behind them. The entire firing process lasted for almost a minute and virtually guaranteed that the firing platform would fall out of orbit over the following weeks.

But in the space of that minute, very nearly one hundred platforms, more than a third of the entire network, fired off over four and a half thousand nuclear-tipped missiles towards the oncoming Death Gliders. The next stage of the battle took more than six minutes to play out but to the Jaffa pilots it felt more like six seconds.

To Jack O’Neil it felt like six hours.

The flock of Ha’tak had halted their advance, their commanders wanting to see what the missiles were supposed to accomplish before deciding on a response. If the missiles were a threat then it would be relatively simple to slip into hyperspace before they arrived and return to the system on another attack vector. If they weren’t, then what would a few minutes matter? The Death Gliders, for their part, moved to target the oncoming missiles. They didn’t have much mobility so it was merely a matter of hitting them. Initially the range was enough that shots were hitting only chance and the number of missiles was reduced by only a miniscule percentage. But the range was dropping rapidly and their accuracy was improving.

And then, still thousands of miles short of the Death Gliders, the missiles seemed to reach an invisible line in space and rank after rank of them began to detonate.

Jack’s cockpit darkened and half-forgotten training had him roll the X-Wing so that the bulk of the fighter was between him and that awesome light. A mass of static crashed across the communications net and he hoped that those nukes hadn’t been set up to deliver an electromagnetic pulse or something of that nature, because he was pretty sure that the X-Wing wasn’t going to fly without computers.

“-ible,” he heard Sam shouting as the static faded. “How in the world did they do that?”

“Do what?” he asked, rolling again to get a look. “Holy… what the hell happened to the Death Gliders?”

“Those missiles must have been carrying bomb-pumped X-ray lasers, sir,” she explained quickly. “Like the ones that were supposed to form the backbone of the Star Wars project back in the eighties.”

“There was a Star Wars project in the eighties?”

He could almost see her roll her eyes. “The Strategic Defence Initiative, sir. It was going to use nuclear warheads to power orbital lasers that would be able to target incoming nuclear missiles. They never got it anything close to working, I guess the Angrezi must have. Look what it did to the Death Gliders!”

Where thousands of Death Gliders had been swarming towards the blue and green orb of Angrezi, only a few dozen survivors, perhaps a hundred, were trying to claw their away from the graveyard of obliterated fighters that their fellows had become. Already Viper squadrons were diving towards them, intent on finishing the job.

Jack felt very old all of a sudden. “Yeah,” he said. “I see it.”

.oOo.

“Would that do anything to the Ha’tak?” Daniel asked.

“Not really,” Nekhrun told him. “Warship shields can take that sort of beating and the individual laser beams generated really aren’t all that powerful. A single Ha’tak might be in trouble against that sort of strike but the Angrezi just used about a third of their missiles for that one attack and the others are out of arc to fire on them anyway. Still, getting rid of the Death Gliders definitely improves our chances – it’ll be a lot easier for our X-Wings and Skiprays to operate now.”

“So what happens now?”

“Now it’s time for the main event,” explained Nekhrun. “Captain Fumizuki, I want all ships to combine their fire. Target flagships if you can. We need to drop them fast so hold nothing back.”

“Gunnery nets are interlinked and ready,” the Captain told him. “Their countermeasures are keeping us from picking out the command vessels however.”

“Then I suppose we take our chances,” the Admiral decided and seated himself in the command chair. “I suggest you all strap yourselves in,” he added to the observers. “This will be one wild ride.”

Daniel and Shakuntala both secured seats for themselves and buckled up. Teal’c simply gripped a stanchion in what could have been machismo but was more probably simply well justified confidence in his ability to avoid being thrown about by the shocks of combat. Down in the front of the command deck, Harjit also remained standing.

Nekhrun shook his head when Daniel pointed this out to him. “She’s over two hundred years old, Doctor. If she wants to put her life at risk I guess I don’t have the right to force her.”

The first Ha’tak came into range and the five ships, arranged so that all their turrets could bear, opened fire in the same instant. One moment the ship was a flying example of the might of the System Lords’ might and the next it was an expanding cloud of debris. In the same moment, three more Ha’tak cruised past the wreck with their own weapons firing. Clearly the Goa’uld had drawn up some sort of plan as they were all firing at the Leonidas, their shots exploding against her shields.

Another volley dropped one of the ships, then another but now there were six ships, all firing on the Leonidas and the ship was shaking under the barrage.

“Drop us out of the net,” Nekhrun observed. “This isn’t working. Let’s hope that the other ships can take their target down as fast as our guns can.”

A Ha’tak near the back of the Goa’uld formation exploded as it was savaged by torpedo boats and X-Wings but that was a sideshow as the Leonidas didn’t even bother to stop firing as the turrets tracked from one target to another. One Ha’tak, its shields collapsing under the barest second of shots limped out of formation – presumably someone had skimped on the shield generators when they were building it in order to bolster their apparent fleet numbers. But that was only a fluke and within moments the first shot penetrated the Leonidas’s shields to blacken it’s previously pristine white hull.

“They’re spreading out to englobe us,” Fumizuki muttered. “Not very well co-ordinated but it’ll work.”

“The only thing better than a little brute force is a lot of brute force,” Nekhrun reminded him. “That’s elementary tactics. The bulk of them are still up front.”

“Sparta is moving!” a sensor operator called.

Nekhrun’s head snapped around. “I didn’t order that!” he growled.

“Message from Captain Knaak,” an operations officer reported. “He says -” Leonidas shook again as a shot punched a divot out of its clean lines “- that he’ll shield us from the front while we clear out the flankers.”

Fumizuki nodded. “Colonel Maybourne, roll the ship! Main batteries, fire as you bear!”

Nekhrun half-opened his mouth to speak and then closed it, a distinctly unhappy expression on his face.

“Stelios, Astinos and Thermopylae are also moving forwards,” reported the operations officer.

.oOo.

Smoke filled the command deck of the Leonidas. Half the controls were dead… the same could be said of most of the crew. “Is anyone else alive?” Maybourne called as he scrambled out from where he’d fallen when an explosion somewhere above the bridge in the ship had caved in one side of the compartment. He grimaced as he saw Harjit, a serene expression on her aged face and long shards of metal buried in her unmoving chest.

“I am well,” Teal’c rumbled, pulling himself from underneath another compartment. He looked around and then crossed to Daniel’s chair, checking for a pulse.

The ship rocked again and Maybourne grimaced as he looked at the monitor. “It’s just us and the Stelios left,” he said. “That was the Thermopylae I guess.”

The Leonidas was a mess. Five of her turrets had been pounded to scrap and this was far from the only compartment that had been battered. Most of her command tower (fortunately it was mostly unoccupied during combat operations) had been ablaze before Fumizuki’s damage control teams had managed to cut off the flow of air to the broken compartments. She was better off than the Stelios however. As far as anyone could tell, the cruiser had lost everything but a tiny handful of point defence mounts and hadn’t been able to do more than move clumsily to block Goa’uld shots – deliberately imposing itself to keep the Leonidas alive long enough to exact more vengeance on those who were killing her.

Shakuntala groaned, blood trickling down her forehead as she stood up from her own chair – though the seat itself was intact, it had come loose from the floor at some point and spilled her across the deck. “I don’t believe that there is much more we can do here,” she said. 

“A few things yet,” came a pained voice from a fallen ceiling panel. Teal’c left the side of the unconscious Daniel to drag it away, revealing the tangled mess that was Ayodhya. Captain Fumizuki lay half across his commander but it was clear that he had breathed his last. “No, don’t try to move me,” he warned. “I think my back’s broken.”

Maybourne looked around. No one else was moving. “We’re down to just us and one cruiser,” he reported. “Three of the main turrets are firing under local control.” He paused and then shook his head. “Sorry, just us. The cruiser’s breaking up.”

Reaching out with one hand, Ayodhya couldn’t quite reach the headset he sought. Teal’c picked it up and carefully set it on him. “Is this thing working?” the Goa’uld asked huskily and the corner of his lips twitched as he heard his voice from the sole loudspeaker still working on the bridge. “I hope so. This has been a brave run, but it’s almost over. And now I must lay a stern burden on you – to survive. To carry the word home to our loved ones. This is an order. All officers are to evacuate every non-essential member of the crew. Use the ring transporters, use the escape pods – our fighters will guard you as best they can. I repeat, this is an order. Our comrades already have a funeral pyre of enough Goa’uld and their Jaffa to climb to heaven upon. They won’t thank you for adding your bodies to it.”

“That means you too,” he added to Teal’c and Shakuntala. “I think you can find the Ring Transporters. If that fails, you know how to find the escape pods Princess. It’s likely that you can hold out on Angrezi for a while – the System Lords are stupid enough that they’ll be more interested in squabbling over the ‘spoils’ than in breaking your resistance.”

“Surely there must be some way to get you to the transporters?” Shakuntala begged, clutching at his hand.

“No,” he said with grim certainty. “It’s not just my spine that’s broken. Besides, this ship is my home. I will not be driven from it by the False Gods. And a last stand like this will be sung of for a thousand years. If the cowardly little worms are this afraid of me now, let’s see how they feel about me when they’ve made me a legend. Maybourne,” he added, louder. “See if you can put me on wide beam broadcast before you go, I’ve got a few things to get off my chest before I go.”

“If it’s all the same to you,” Maybourne said, “I’ll stay a little longer. Now, if I was a communications panel, where would I be…?”

Ayodhya started to laugh and then spat up a gobbet of blood that dribbled down his chin. “Try the flag deck,” he said, jerking his head towards the stations behind the dais. “I think it didn’t catch as much of the damage.”

“Got it,” Maybourne said and reached one of the panels. “Aha. Okay, it’s ready when you are.”

“In a moment,” Ayodhya said and looked up at the others. “Well? Are you waiting for something? Get out of here!”

Teal’c lifted Daniel easily in his arms and carried him off the bridge. Shakuntala paused and then knelt by Ayodhya’s side, whispering to him. Maybourne had to turn away as he headed for what was left of the helm but he was cagey enough to notice blood on her lips when she rose and followed Teal’c.

“You’re a strange man, Colonel,” Ayodhya observed, his voice weakening. “According to von Pinn, ever since you were brought aboard the Leonidas, you’ve been trying to escape from her. And now when you can leave with my blessing, I can’t get rid of you.”

“I’m contrary like that,” Maybourne said and the two men watched one of the last screens display a Ha’tak drifting away from the fight, engines on fire.”

“How many does that make?” the Admiral asked. “I lost count there.”

“Not counting the ones that are just trying to get out of here, I think they have about thirty left,” Maybourne told him. “Didn’t you have something to say to them?”

“Ah yes,” he muttered. “Now how did that go…?” He activated the microphone. “Strike me down and I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine…”

.oOo.

“What the hell is he quoting Obi-Wan for?” Jack asked as he raked at the shields of one of the Ha’tak with his cannon. They were both long since out of torpedoes and there wasn’t anywhere in orbit to obtain reloads since the Thermopylae had exploded.

“Don’t you remember what happens next in the film?” Sam asked. “Judging by the escape pods, the Leonidas isn’t going to last much longer.”

“Christ!” exclaimed Jack. “Danny and Teal’c are still aboard!”

“All fighters,” one of the few remaining squadron leaders signalled. “Change of orders. Form up around the escape pods, if any of those damned Goa’uld want at them, we’ll make them pay the price of threatening our comrades.”

“We’d better hope that they made it aboard one of those pods,” Sam said and broke away from Jack towards the refugees from the Leonidas. After a moment he pulled around and took up position on her wing.

Only one of the Ha’tak tried to go after the escape pods and it backed off when the rear left turret of the Leonidas – one of only two still firing – swung around and started battering at it’s shields. The Leonidas itself was still moving forwards and the Ha’taks started to scatter out of it’s path, wary that whoever was at the helm would try to repeat the feat of the Dilios. Not all of them were fast enough however and the battered destroyer didn’t even slow down as it sheared away one of the projections of a crippled Ha’tak, the only evidence of the impact being a few new scars along its already blackened prow.

“It isn’t going to make it,” Sam observed.

Explosions ran down the flank of the destroyer as it fought to bring it’s nose down. And then one Ha’tak halted sharply right in front of the Leonidas. It’s engines were straining, the power levels spiking sharply, but it was held in place as the Leonidas lumbered down upon it.

“Must have got caught in a tractor beam,” Jack noted. “Or maybe something funky with the deflector dish.”

“Sir, the Leonidas is a Star Destroyer. It doesn’t have a deflector dish.”

“It isn’t going to have much of anything in a minute,” pointed out Jack. “Whoa, what’s that…”

‘That’ was another Ha’tak closing in on the Leonidas, quite fast. To be more precise, heading for the gap between the Leonidas and it’s target. Whatever force had been drawing in the intended target was interrupted by the second Ha’tak and the first ship sprang away suddenly, almost hitting a third Ha’tak. The second ship didn’t quite make it out of the way however and the Leonidas speared into the outer structure immediately behind the central pyramid, smashing through with its forward quarter a shattered wreck. The Ha’tak tumbled and its blunt nose came down on the Leonidas’ last turret, silencing it.

In the end it was the third Ha’tak, the one that had almost been struck by the Leonidas’ original target, that was the most unfortunate… because in evading that collision the helmsman had not registered how the Leonidas’ course had been altered by its own collision until it was almost too late.

The two ships didn’t hit each other. But the Ha’tak was less than half a mile away when the hyperdrive of the Leonidas exploded.

The only identifiable part of the Leonidas to survive was the command tower, that promptly destroyed itself by slamming into the still tumbling Ha’tak that the destroyer had hit only seconds before. The third Ha’tak had taken the direct force of the explosion however and what was left of it smashed into yet another Ha’tak.

.oOo.

“You don’t think you were cutting it a little fine do you?” von Pinn asked as Teal’c half-carried the still groggy Daniel into the Padishah’s command centre. Then he paused. “Where’s the Admiral?”

“AdmiralAyodhya remained aboard,” Teal’c told him, letting Shakuntala move past him towards her father.

Von Pinn grimaced. “Then he’s dead,” he said and pointed to the tactical display. There was a distinct lack of icons to represent Confederate capital ships although a cluster of fighter icons were heading for the safety of Angrezi’s surface. There were still almost forty Ha’tak in evidence although at least a quarter had the amber markings around them that signified significant battle damage.

“That’s doesn’t look good,” Daniel observed. “Are Jack and Sam okay out there?”

“As far as I can tell, they’re with the other fighters,” von Pinn told them. “Let’s just hope that the Goa’uld don’t keep their heads though because if they rush us now -”

“Hyperspace windows opening!” called an officer and von Pinn whirled.

“In or out?” he asked urgently.

Rather than replying, the officer began updating the display. White spots opened above the Goa’uld fleet and unidentified vessels appeared.

“Reinforcements,” von Pinn muttered. “But for who?”

Then the icons flickered and were replaced with Confederate icons and identifiers as their IFF systems contacted the Angrezi’s computers.

“Who are they?” Daniel asked. “They’re friendly, right?”

“Gods of my ancestors!” von Pinn said. “It’s an entire fleet! Six carriers, four cruisers… Six Destroyers! Unrepentant, Damned, Olympic… Admiral von Lohengramm’s battle-group and Lieutenant-Admiral Kiercheis’s destroyer group. Those look like Müller’s carriers as well. Oh, the System Lords are fucked now!”

“We’re receiving a video transmission,” one of the console operators reported.

“Put it on the main screen,” the Padishah ordered and a moment later, the display revealed a young man with golden hair wearing the uniform of a Confederate Admiral.

“Padishah,” the man said, bowing. “I have the honour of being Admiral Reinhardt von Lohengramm. My forces were striking at one of the Goa’uld staging areas when I discovered that their forces had already departed for Angrezi. I regret that my best speed has not brought me here in time to join forces with Admiral Ayodhya. With your permission, I shall now clear these rabble from your skies.”

“Admiral, you have not only my permission but my wholehearted support,” the Padishah replied. “I only regret that Admiral Ayodhya and Lord Nekhrun are not alive to receive you.”

“Look at those Goa’uld run!” someone called and everyone’s eyes went to the display where the System Lord flotillas were scattering, leaving their crippled behind.

Von Lohengramm’s grey eyes were very cold as he ordered his ships to close in on the fleeing vessels.


	9. Epilogue

Our fleet has lost its champion; to ash he has returned,  
To stand before the next life, in the state his deeds have earned.  
Our hero needs an honour guard, an escort, and a crew,  
And if you’re the best available, I guess you’ll have to do.

No Quarter, NO QUARTER! You damn well earned your fate.  
Give Lord Nekhrun our compliments; we’re sorry you are late.

Ancient legends say the rank a fallen warrior held  
Depended on an Honour Guard of foes that one had felled.  
And so in tardy tribute to the one we couldn’t save,  
We’ll lay your fiery deaths like crimson flowers on his grave.

No Quarter, NO QUARTER! You damn well earned your fate.  
Give Lord Nekhrun our compliments; we’re sorry you are late.

We know what Nekhrun’s ending was, by all the songs we heard.  
And now we reach the battle; we are in no gentle mood.  
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?  
That’s each manjack in the Navy taking up the cry -

No Quarter! HUA!  
No Quarter! HUA!  
No Quarter! HUA!

The Angrezi certainly knew how to throw a party, Jack noted. Currently there was a veritable carnival sweeping across the capital city and anyone wearing a Confederate uniform was unable to pay for their drinks, or allegedly any of the other services that were apparently available in the less exclusive quarters of the capital.

In the palace, the Padishah’s senior officers, representatives of von Lohengramm’s fleet and virtually every single survivor of Ayodhya’s battle group were roaring a song in tribute to their fallen hero. Jack suspected that it had been hastily patched together from an existing song rather than being a new composition but that didn’t seem to dampen anyone’s enthusiasm.

“Aren’t you drinking, Colonel?” Shakuntala asked and he turned, his back to the balcony rail he’d been leaning on, to see her watching him from the doorway, a sizeable bottle of coloured glass braced against one hip and a goblet half-full of some colourless liquid in the other.

“Just wondering what happens now,” he told her. “Do you have another glass of that?”

She laughed and offered him hers, which he took gingerly. “Don’t worry, there’s no symbolism or anything to sharing a glass,” Shakuntala assured him. “Well, other than being fellow warriors.”

“Thanks. I almost got married one time… if Danny hadn’t warned me at the last minute…” Jack shook his head and sipped on the contents of the glass. A moment later and he was glad that all he’d done was sip – the stuff was strong, something like 80-proof he’d guess and after a moment he realised it was plum brandy.

She laughed again at the accusing look that he shot at him. “I didn’t come out here to tease you, Colonel. Well, not just to tease you. Father agreed to reopen the Stargate to notify your people of your well-being and the Tok’ra managed to connect first. It would seem that they want to send a delegation to explain themselves, and presumably to get a good look at us for themselves.”

Jack nodded. “Who’s coming? Selmak?”

“That’s one of the names,” the Princess agreed. “Someone you know?”

“His host is Sam’s father,” he explained. “Do you want me to meet them first? Warn them not to do anything stupid like badmouthing Nekhrun.”

“That wouldn’t win them any points,” she agreed. “I’m sure it can be arranged for you.”

They stood in silence for a moment, thinking their own private thoughts and then Jack drained the glass. “It’s too bad he died,” he said. “Might have actually made me reconsider my opinion of the sna- uh, worms.”

“Well we couldn’t have that,” Shakuntala observed. “Fortunately the one known exception to the species’ general repulsiveness won’t be around to challenge your prejudices any more.”

“Jack!” Daniel called, walking out onto the balcony. “I just heard that the Stargate will -” he broke off as he saw Shakuntala standing beside Jack. “Oh, uh… am I interrupting anything?”

The two looked at each other. “No,” they confirmed quickly.

“We were just talking about Nekhrun,” Jack explained.

“There’s no chance that he and Maybourne managed to make it to an escape pod?” Daniel asked. “I mean, they’re both survivors…”

Shakuntala turned to look out over the city. “It would be nice to think that, Doctor.” Against the bright lights of the city neither man could see the golden glow that lit her eyes for the moment. “However, all the escape pods were accounted for.”

.oOo.

The Tok’ra were in a subdued mood as they explained Delek’s treason, first to SG-1 and then to Admiral von Lohengramm and the Confederate diplomats. Anise, although part of the delegation, said nothing to either group after the revelation that Nekhrun was dead, but had died apparently heroically. However, her expression when the Padishah proposed that the first Destroyer to be built at the shipyards just beginning construction over Angrezi would be named the ‘Wrath of Nekhrun’ said a great deal, as did her evident relief when Admiral von Lohengramm smoothly suggested that perhaps it would be more appropriate to resurrect the name of the Leonidas.

The prospect of war between the Tok’ra and the Confederacy had been averted however, and once the Tok’ra arrived the time had come for SG-1 to depart.

“I’ve been asked to make a few presentations,” the blond admiral announced from beside the Padishah’s throne as the four of them took their leave. The throne room was far less crowded than it had been on their previous visits although there was still an interested crowd of officers. “Firstly, it is with great pleasure that I award the first Angrezi in the Confederated Free Systems Fleet her commission.” He took out a roll of parchment and unrolled it. “By the declaration of the People and the Senate of the Confederacy, the rank of Captain is hereby conferred upon Princess Shakuntala of Angrezi.”

The princess stepped forwards, clad for once in the crimson tunic and black pants of her battalion’s dress uniform, and the Admiral handed her the parchment. “The rank goes with official appointment as the liaison officer between the Padishah and Fleet Headquarters,” he added, “So I suppose that I’ll be seeing a great deal of you in the future.”

Then he turned an aide, who presented him with a crimson sash. “Teal’c of Chulak. By the declaration of the People and the Senate of the Confederacy, for your valour in battle against the enemies of the Confederacy, you are hereby presented with the Silver Cat.” He hung the sash across Teal’c’s chest, proudly displaying the single medal fastened to it, a stylised silver panther.

Daniel received a Crimson Cat, of red-enamelled bronze, on his own red sash. Sam and Jack’s sashes were blue and while Sam received the same Silver Cat as Teal’c, Jack’s was surrounded by bronze laurels.

“And finally,” von Lohengramm advised. “Lord Nekhrun left a personal gift to Colonel O’Neill and it falls to me to make the presentation.” He gestured towards the windows. “It’s a little large for the throne room, I fear, but I’ve had it set up in the courtyard.

Jack frowned at him and then hastened to the window. He halted abruptly as he saw the courtyard below and Sam, close behind him, almost ran into him.

An X-Wing fighter sat in the courtyard, obviously fully prepared for launch. It was also a brilliant scarlet red, with black go faster stripes. The smile on Jack’s face looked as if it would have to be surgically removed.

“Sir?” Sam asked as Jack started whistling happily.

“Don’t spoil the moment, Carter.”

“How are you going to get it through the gate, sir?”

Jack stopped whistling. “Dammit, I knew I should have asked for a Viper!”


	10. Appendices

1\. The Confederated Free Systems

The Confederated Free Systems, more commonly simply referred to as the Confederacy, is an interstellar nation established roughly two hundred years ago by planets under the protection of the Goa’uld Nekhrun. Two of the three founding members had been trading partners for two generations before the Confederacy was proposed to them by a third such world shortly after first contact. One of those three worlds, Heinessen, is the capital world of the Confederacy.

As of the beginning of the Confederacy’s entry into the Goa’uld War, there are seven member nations covering ten inhabited planets, with an estimated population in excess of ten billion. In addition, the Confederacy has taken over a hundred worlds settled by humans under the guidance of Nekhrun under their protection as protectorate worlds and are quietly introducing social changes and scientific discoveries to guide the Protectorates towards global governments and space travel, which are the primary requirements in order that they can qualify to join the Confederacy.

The member nations are multi-ethnic but all have strong primary cultures, usually built around the ethnic group that came out on top during their unification: for example, Basantapur and Angrezi have dominant Indian cultures while Heinessen’s dominant culture is German.

While there is no specific requirement for this, all seven states are ruled by imperial dynasties. The heads of these dynasties are the High Lords of the Confederacy and elect the First Lord of the Confederacy from amongst themselves to oversee the day to day leadership of their alliance. The other High Lords act as the primary restraint upon the First Lord’s and in council they (or their representatives) can overrule his veto over the Senate’s legislative powers. This authority is rarely exercised since the High Lords meet relatively infrequently and are reluctant to authorise others to vote for them as the votes of those representatives are binding without further ratification. When it is necessary, the vote or votes are almost always proxied to the First Lord or to Nekhrun. For the entire history of the Confederacy, the First Lord has been the High Lord of Heinessen, but this has no weight beyond tradition and under the constitution any of the High Lords can serve and in theory, a First Lord can be stripped of his position.

The Senate of the Confederacy is an elective body, with one fifth of the seats elected every year. However, the seats are voted for by a quite limited electorate. There are a number of ways to qualify for the vote but all require a certain degree of prominence: titled nobility, personal wealth and military rank are all possible routes. Most but not all member nations have a number of Electors, individuals who can vote in Senate elections because they won elections for the positions. It isn’t a terribly democratic model of government but democracy is not especially prized by the Confederacy, which styles itself as a meritocracy.

The working government of the Confederacy is divided into several Ministries that are then subdivided into Secretariats. Ministers and Secretaries are appointed by the High Lords and sit and vote on the Senate, the only seats essentially controlled by the High Lords. The three most important positions in the government are the Minister of State, who is responsible for the smooth running of the government; the Secretary of the Treasury, whose position in the Ministry of Economics is very much that of the tail that wags the dog; and the Minister of the Fleet.

 

2\. The Confederated Free Systems Fleet

To a very considerable degree, the Confederacy could be said to exist solely for the purposes of supporting the Fleet, the force intended by Nekhrun to be used to destroy the domination of the System Lords over the galaxy. That, at least, is the supposed role that it plays. The Fleet is a very small force compared to its opponents – numbering less than a hundred cruisers, carriers and destroyers after the Battle of Angrezi. However, it is well equipped and has strong bases in the Confederacy as with the exception of Angrezi all the seven member-states possess formidable orbital and planetary defences and the one exception is not expected to last long.

The largest single component of the Fleet in sheer numbers are the ground forces. Companies, battalions and regiments of soldiers can be found all over the Confederacy serving in many roles. The majority serve as infantry but there are a number of artillery and armoured units in service. However, the core of the Fleet in the public perceptions and in the strategic vision of the High Lords are the ships, indeed, not merely the ships but the warships, which remain outnumbered by the scouts, transports and other support vessels. Confederate warships fall into three basic classes.

Almost half of the Fleet’s warships are Cruisers, well-armed ships that are individually capable of matching a much larger Ha’tak in space combat. They accomplish this largely by focusing upon this role to the exclusion of most others – they can carry only a single company of infantry and only one wing of interceptors with no ability to support larger attack craft. However, the twenty-four cannon mounted on cruisers provide an almost unmatched ability to target smaller vessels and can concentrate their firepower with great effectiveness at need. Cruisers are the most likely vessels to be seen operating on their own and quite often act as command vessels for long-range scouting expeditions or patrols over the Protectorates.

Slightly less than a third of the Fleet is made up of Carriers, ships roughly half again the size of a Cruiser. As the name suggests, Carriers are built around the ability to support the attack craft of the fleet, possessing a large spinal flight deck in addition to the ventral hangers and launch tubes used to house the interceptors. Typically a Carrier will carry a single interceptor wing, a wing of torpedo boats and three wings of fighter-bombers. However, the main flight deck is fully capable of supporting a wide range of options. The price for this specialisation is that a Carrier carries only a token force of soldiers and two-thirds the primary armament of a Cruiser. Carriers make up the bulk of most organised fleets protecting the Homeworlds and as flagships for extended operations in the Protectorates. They also lead escorts for military convoys.

The price of the fleet are the Ha’tak Destroyers, of which there were twenty-six until the destruction of the Leonidas. Destroyers are almost twice as large as Carriers and mount almost three times the primary armament of a Cruiser in only a third the number of mounts. As was proven over Angrezi, a Ha’tak Destroyer is capable of utter havoc against Goa’uld ships but unsupported is vulnerable to being swarmed. They each carry a single interceptor wing and a battalion of infantry. Destroyers serve as command ships for independent battle groups and are also grouped together in powerful destroyer groups as part of major fleets. The deployment of two-thirds of the Fleet’s Destroyers during Operation Mount Niitaka was an unprecedented weakening of the Confederacy’s defences that is not likely to be repeated in the future.


End file.
